


Part One: The Sorcerer's Stone

by L_Greene



Series: True Colors [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Hufflepuff!Ron, Ravenclaw!Hermione, Slytherin!Harry, trans!Draco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-19 21:45:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 54,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8225746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L_Greene/pseuds/L_Greene
Summary: A re-imagining of the series, told one book at a time, of what might have changed in the series if Harry was sorted into Slytherin, Ron into Hufflepuff, and Hermione into Ravenclaw. This is Part One of Seven.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Just what it says on the tin.
> 
> It took me an embarrassingly long time to write this. I first got the inspiration shortly after visiting Universal Studios Orlando with my parents back in May, and now that I'm wrapping up my visit to Universal Studios Japan, I finally got it finished (I was on hiatus for several months, and I just hammered out the last 20,000 words or so over the past few days). Not sure when the next one will be posted, but since I'm combing through one book at a time, I would expect it sometime around the New Year. (Fun story: When I started this fic, I thought I was a Ravenclaw. About a month later, I took the Pottermore quiz and it turns out I'm actually a Slytherin. So I'm basically American!Draco.)
> 
> Background: The "Golden Trio" is no longer a trio, but a quartet. I imagine that with Harry in Slytherin, he'd see a much different side to Draco, and that Harry would be a very good influence on him. Draco Malfoy is a trans boy (which I make clear in the text). Blaise Zabini has stepped in to take the role of Main Antagonist because taking Draco out of that role left a huge plot vacuum. Forgive the messy reworkings--other things here and there had to be omitted.
> 
> By and large, this part isn't too much different from canon; later parts will diverge more. Parts five through seven are going to be BRUTAL.
> 
> I take chapters one through halfway through five (and other parts of five) are taken as written (chapters six and on are pretty much direct transcriptions). It would have added a few extra days to transcribe them (which is exactly what I'd be doing, since literally nothing about them changed; the very first point of divergence is when Harry first meets Draco at Madam Malkin's)--but if anyone wants me to add them in, I can probably do that.

Hagrid dropped him off in front of Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions and darted away, leaving Harry to enter the shop by himself. He cast his glance around, peering at the robes hanging from hooks on every wall, robes of every color he could think of—red and blue and black, deep violet and bottle-green, grays and browns and orange, some violently yellow, and even a few in the back which seemed to have every color woven into them.

A witch in mauve near the middle of the room cleared her throat, and Harry spun around, suddenly embarrassed. He'd been gawking without realizing it. “Hogwarts, dear?” she asked, smiling. “Got the lot here—another student being fitted up just now, in fact.”

She showed him to the back of the shop, where another witch was crouched down in front of a footstool. Upon the footstool was perched another kid who looked to be about Harry's age with long, ice-blond hair falling to mid-back, tied back with a black ribbon. The other student turned a pair of curious gray eyes on him. The student was draped in robes, pitch black, and the second witch was pinning them up. Harry nodded and stepped up onto another footstool next to the other student, trying to figure out if they were a boy or a girl. The hair suggested a girl, but there was a sharpness to their gaze that reminded him of a boy.

“Hello,” the other student said, and their voice betrayed nothing about their gender. “Hogwarts, too?”

Madam Malkin threw a robe over his head and began pinning it to the right length. “Yes.” Figuring it was never to early to try his hand at making friends—at least with witches and wizards his own age—he added, “I'm Harry,” and hoped he wouldn't be pressed for a surname.

“De—Draco,” the student—a boy, Harry guessed, based on the name—replied. He held out his hand, twisting to not disturb the witch pinning his hem, and Harry shook his hand and offered him a small smile.

Draco's returning smile was tentative, but not unfriendly. “My father's next door buying my books, and Mother's up the street looking at wands,” he said. He had a rather drawling voice, but it might have just been the way he talked. “Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. D'you play Quidditch?”

“No,” said Harry, feeling stupid.

The boy raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. “Are you... a Muggle-born, by any chance?”

“N-no, my parents went to Hogwarts, too, I just...” Harry was certain Draco would know who he was if he told him his surname, but he didn't want to tell people that just yet. “I wasn't raised by them. I was raised by Muggles.”

Draco looked aghast. “So you don't know _anything_ about wizarding life?”

“Not really,” Harry admitted.

Without any further prompting, Draco launched into a full explanation about the rules of Quidditch, their coursework, the school in general, the school Houses. He was just saying that he'd probably end up in Slytherin—“All of my family is”—when Madam Malkin said, “That's you done, my dear.”

Harry hopped off the stool and turned back to the other boy. “I'll see you at school, Draco.”

Draco smiled, less tentatively this time. “See you at school, Harry.”

He wandered out of the shop, his arms laden with robes, and went to find Hagrid. He couldn't wait to tell him that he'd already made his first friend.

 

It was surprisingly easy to convince Uncle Vernon to give him a lift to King's Cross on September 1, but less easy was figuring out where exactly Platform 9 ¾ was. In all the information Draco had dumped on him, as helpful as it was, he'd neglected to mention how to get to the Hogwarts Express itself. He stood in between platforms 9 and 10 with his luggage cart, feeling very foolish and hoping against hope that maybe Draco would appear with his parents.

“— _packed_ with Muggles, of course—” a voice behind him said, and he whirled around to see a plump woman with four boys and a smaller girl. All of them had flaming red hair. Could they be a wizarding family? All the boys had luggage carts with trunks like Harry's, and they even had an owl. He followed behind them and stopped when they did.

“What's the platform number again?” the girl asked, clinging to her mother's hand.

“Nine and three-quarters,” the red-haired woman said absently. “All right, Percy, you go first.”

The oldest-looking boy marched toward the barrier between platforms 9 and 10—Harry was careful not to blink in case he missed it—but then a swarm of travelers passed behind Percy, blocking Harry's view, and by the time the last backpack cleared, the boy was gone.

“Fred, you next,” the woman said.

“I'm not Fred, I'm _George_ ,” said the boy with exasperation. “Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can't you _tell_ I'm George?”

“Sorry, George, dear.”

“Only joking—I am Fred,” he said, and off he went. A second later, he had gone, but... _how_?

And then the third brother, George, Fred's twin, was striding toward the barrier, and then he wasn't anywhere.

“Excuse me,” Harry said to the woman.

“Hello, dear,” she said kindly. “First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new, too.” She pointed, indicating the last and youngest of her sons. He was taller than Harry but just as thin, with a dusting of freckles against his dark skin.

“Yes,” Harry said. He wished Draco had told him about Platform 9 ¾. “The thing is—the thing is, I don't know how to...”

“How to get onto the platform?”

Harry nodded.

“Not to worry.” She smiled at him. “All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it—that's very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous. Go on, go now before Ron.”

“Er... okay.” Harry pushed his trolley around and stared at the barrier. It looked very solid.

He set off toward the barrier. People jostled him as they passed, and he walked more quickly. He was going to smash right into the barrier and then he'd be in trouble.

He broke into a heavy run, the barrier coming nearer and nearer, he wasn't going to be able to slow down in time—he closed his eyes, bracing for the crash...

That never came. Still wheeling forward, he opened his eyes.

A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven o'clock. Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words _Platform Nine and Three-Quarters_ on it. He'd made it!

He began scanning the crowd, looking for an opening to get into a carriage. He was also keeping an eye out for a glint of white-blond hair or the flash of red hair of one of the other of the woman's sons, but Draco was nowhere in sight and the red-haired family seemed to have already gotten onto the train.

He pressed into the crowd until he found an empty compartment near the end of the train. He put Hedwig inside first and then started to shove and heave his trunk toward the train door. He tried to lift it up the steps, but he could hardly raise one end and twice he dropped it painfully on his foot.

“Want a hand?” It was one of the red-haired twins, who'd miraculously reappeared.

“Yes, please,” Harry panted.

“Oy, Fred! C'mere and help!”

With the twins' help, Harry's trunk was at last tucked away in a corner of the compartment.

“Thanks,” said Harry, pushing his sweaty hair out of his eyes.

“What's that?” one of the twins said suddenly, pointing at Harry's lightning scar.

“Blimey,” the other one said. “Are you—?”

“He _is_ ,” replied his twin. “Aren't you?” he added to Harry.

“What?”

“ _Harry Potter_ ,” they chorused.

“Oh, him. I mean, yes, I am.”

The twins gawked at him, and Harry felt himself turning red. Just then, to his relief, a voice came floating in through the train's open door.

“Fred? George? Are you in there?”

“Coming, Mum.”

The twins cast one more glance at him before hopping off the train to meet their mother.

Harry sank into the seat next to the window. From here, he could watch the red-haired family on the platform and hear what they were saying.

Their mother had just taken out a handkerchief to rub a smudge of dirt off the end of Ron's nose, even after he tried to jerk out of the way.

“Where's Percy?” their mother asked.

“He's coming now.”

The oldest boy came striding into sight. He'd already changed into his billowing black Hogwarts robes, and Harry noticed a shiny green-and-silver badge on his chest with the letter _P_ on it.

“Can't stay long, Mother,” he said. “I'm up front, the prefects have got two compartments to themselves—”

“Oh, are you a _prefect_ , Percy?” said one of the twins, with an air of great surprise. “You should have said something, we had no idea.”

“Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it,” said the other twin. “Once—”

“Or twice—”

“A minute—”

“All summer—”

“Oh, shut up,” said Percy the Prefect.

Harry settled back, only half-listening to the conversation until the train whistle sounded.

“Hurry up!” the red-haired mother said, and the three boys—Percy had already left—clambered onto the train. They leaned out of the window for their mother to kiss them good-bye, and their younger sister began to cry.

“Don't cry, Ginny, we'll send you loads of owls.”

“We'll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat.”

“ _George!_ ”

“Only joking, Mum.”

The train began to move. The boys' mother waved and their sister, half-laughing, half-crying, ran to keep up with the train until it gathered too much speed, and then she fell back and waved.

Harry watched them disappear as the train rounded the corner. Houses flashed past the window, and he felt a great leap of excitement. He didn't know what he was going to, but it had to be better than what he was leaving behind.

The door of the compartment slid open and the youngest redheaded boy came in.

“Anyone sitting there?” he asked, pointing at the seat opposite Harry. “Everywhere else is full.”

Harry shook his head and the boy sat down. He glanced at Harry and then quickly looked out of the window, pretending he hadn't looked. Harry saw he still had a smudge on his nose.

“Hey, Ron.” The twins were back. “Listen, we're going down the middle of the train—Lee Jordan's got a giant tarantula down there.”

“Right,” mumbled Ron.

“Harry,” said the other twin, “did we introduce ourselves? Fred and George Weasley. And this is Ron, our brother. See you later, then.”

“Bye,” Harry and Ron said together. The compartment door slid shut behind the twins as they left.

“Are you really Harry Potter?” Ron blurted out.

Harry nodded.

“Oh—well, I thought it might have been one of Fred and George's jokes,” said Ron. “And have you really got... you know...” He pointed at Harry's forehead.

Harry pulled his bangs back to show the lightning scar. Ron stared.

“So that's where You-Know-Who—?”

“Yes,” said Harry, “but I can't remember it.”

“Nothing?” Ron asked, leaning forward.

“Well—I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else.”

“Wow,” said Ron. He sat and stared at Harry for a few moments, and then, as though he had suddenly realized what he was doing, looked quickly away.

“Are all your family wizards?” asked Harry, who found Ron just as interesting as Ron found him.

“Er—yes, I think so. I think Mum's got a second cousin who's an accountant, but we never talk about him.”

“So you must know loads of magic already.” Draco had mentioned old wizarding families—the Weasleys were clearly one of them.

“I heard you went to live with Muggles,” said Ron. “What are they like?”

“Horrible. Well, not all of them. My aunt and uncle and cousin are, though. Wish I'd had three wizard brothers.”

“Five,” Ron mumbled. “I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I've got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left—Bill was head boy, and Charlie was the captain of the Quidditch team. Now Percy's a prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first. You never get anything new, either, with five brothers. I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat.” Ron reached inside his jacket and pulled out a fat gray rat, which was asleep. “His name's Scabbers and he's useless, he hardly ever wakes up. Percy got an owl from my dad for being made a prefect, but they couldn't aff—I mean, I got Scabbers instead.”

Ron's ears went pink. He seemed to think he'd said too much, because he went back to staring out the window.

Harry didn't think there was anything wrong with not being able to afford an owl. After all, he'd never had any money in his life until a month ago, and he told Ron so, all about having to wear Dudley's old clothes and never getting proper birthday presents. This seemed to cheer Ron up.

“...and until Hagrid told me, I didn't know anything about being a wizard or my parents or Voldemort—”

Ron gasped.

“What?”

“ _You said You-Know-Who's name_!” hissed Ron, sounding both shocked and impressed. “I'd have thought you, of all people—”

“I'm not trying to be _brave_ or anything, saying his name, I just never knew you shouldn't. See what I mean? I've got loads to learn. I bet,” he added, finally voicing something that had been worrying him a lot lately, “I bet I'm the worst in the class.”

“You won't be. There's loads of people who come from Muggle families and they learn quick enough.”

Their conversation turned back toward Scabbers, interrupted briefly by a round-faced boy looking for his toad, and Ron ended up pulling out his wand. “I tried to turn him yellow to make him more interesting, but the spell didn't work. I'll show you, look...”

His wand did look rather battered, chipped in places with something white glinting at the end.

“Unicorn hair's nearly poking out. Anyway—”

Just as he raised his wand, the door to their compartment slid open again. The toadless boy was back, but this time he had a girl with him. She was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes.

“Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost his,” she said. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.

“We've already told him we haven't seen it,” said Ron, but she wasn't listening—she'd caught sight of the wand in his hand.

“Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then.”

She sat down next to Harry with an expectant look on her face. Ron looked taken aback.

“Er—all right.” He cleared his throat.

 

“ _Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow,_

_Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow.”_

 

He waved his wand, but nothing happened. Scabbers stayed gray and fast asleep.

“Are you sure that's a real spell?” asked the girl. “Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice, and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course. I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard—I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough—I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?”

She said this all very fast.

Harry looked at Ron and was relieved to see by his stunned face that he hadn't learned all the course books by heart, either.

“I'm Ron Weasley,” Ron muttered.

“Harry Potter,” said Harry.

At that, Hermione seemed to quiver with excitement. “Are you really? I know all about you, of course—I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in _Modern Magical History_ and _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ and _Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century_.”

“Am I?” asked Harry, feeling dazed.

“Goodness, didn't you know? I'd have found out everything I could if it were me,” said Hermione. “Do either of you know what House you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Ravenclaw, it sounds by far the best, but I suppose Gryffindor wouldn't be too bad—I heard Dumbledore himself was in it... Anyway, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know. I expect we'll be there soon.”

And she left, taking the toadless boy with her.

“Whatever House I'm in, I hope she's not in it,” said Ron. He threw his wand back into his trunk. “Stupid spell—George gave it to me, bet he knew it was a dud.”

“What House are your brothers in?”

“All different ones. Bill was in Gryffindor, just like Mum and Dad, but it was a big shock when Charlie got put in Hufflepuff, and then Percy wound up in Slytherin, and Fred and George are both in Ravenclaw. Charlie was the first non-Gryffindor in the family, but after him...” Ron shrugged. “I guess none of them are that bad, but Slytherin has a bit of a bad reputation.”

Harry thought back to Draco in Madam Malkin's and wondered where he was. He hadn't seemed too bad. “That's the House Vol—I mean, You-Know-Who was in, right?”

“Yeah,” said Ron. He flopped back into his seat, looking depressed.

“You know, I think the ends of Scabbers's whiskers are a bit lighter,” said Harry, trying to take Ron's mind off Houses. “So what do your oldest brothers do now that they've left, anyway?”

Harry was wondering what a witch or wizard did once they'd finished school.

“Charlie's in Romania studying dragons, and Bill's in Africa doing something for Gringotts,” said Ron. “Did you hear about Gringotts? It's been all over the _Daily Prophet_ , but I don't suppose you get that with the Muggles—someone tried to rob a high-security vault.”

Harry blinked in astonishment. “Really? What happened to them?”

“Nothing, that's why it's such big news. They haven't been caught. My dad says it must've been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts, but they don't think they took anything, that's what's odd. 'Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You-Know-Who's behind it.”

Harry turned this news over in his mind. He was starting to get a prickle of fear every time You-Kn0w-Who was mentioned. He supposed this was all part of entering the magical world, but it had been a lot more comfortable saying “Voldemort” without worrying.

“What's your Quidditch team?” Ron asked abruptly.

“Er—I don't know any,” Harry confessed. Draco had given him a rundown of the rules, but had neglected to mention any specific teams.

“What?!” Ron looked dumbfounded. “Oh, you wait, it's the best game in the world—” And for the second time in a month, Harry found himself being given a detailed explanation of the game. Ron was just taking him through the finer points of the game when the compartment door slid open yet again, but it wasn't Neville the toadless boy or Hermione Granger this time.

It was Draco, flanked by two other, much larger boys. It took Harry a second to place Draco—he'd cut his hair much shorter sometime in the last month, too close to his head for his previous ponytail. If it wasn't for his hair being that strikingly light color, he might not have recognized him.

“Hello, Draco,” Harry said. The other boy looked extremely curious.

“Is it true?” he asked. “You told me your name is Harry, and they're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. It's you, isn't it?”

“Yes.” Harry glanced at the other boys. Both were thickset and looked extremely mean. Standing on either side of Draco, they looked like bodyguards.

He must have noticed where Harry was looking, because he said, “This is Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. I suppose a proper introduction is in order—I'm Draco Malfoy.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ron cock his head to the side.

Harry shook his hand again, saying, “Well, you already know who I am, and this is Ron Weasley.”

Draco's cool gray eyes turned toward Ron, and Harry looked, too. Ron was regarding Draco with an expression of thinly-veiled suspicion, which melted into surprise as Draco stuck out his hand for him to shake as well. “Nice to meet you, Ron.”

Ron also shook Draco's hand. “Same, Draco,” he said, sounding unsure of himself.

“I just wanted to see if the rumors were true. Looks like they were.” Draco glanced between them for a moment before adding, “See you at school.” He stepped back into the corridor, and the other two followed him, closing the door behind them.

“What just happened?” Ron asked. “You met him before?”

Harry was just as confused as Ron, and only because Ron was confused. “Of course. I met him in Diagon Alley, at Madam Malkin's. Why?”

“He... well, the Malfoys... I've never met them, but my dad knows Lucius Malfoy—I guess that kid's father. The Malfoys were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they'd been bewitched. My dad doesn't believe it. He says Lucius didn't need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side.”

“Oh.”

“I always thought the Malfoys had a daughter, not a son. But I guess it doesn't matter—I didn't expect him to shake my hand or be almost _nice_ to me.”

“I guess not all wizards like each other, then.”

Ron scowled. “Some families, like the Malfoys, consider other families, like mine, to be beneath them. They won't even associate with us.”

Harry wanted to ask why, but he thought maybe it wasn't a good time. “Maybe Draco isn't as bad as his father, then.”

“Maybe. We'll see.”

The sky outside their window was turning steadily darker and the train appeared to be slowing, so they began changing into their robes. Ron's seemed to be a bit short for him; you could see his sneakers underneath them.

A voice echoed through the train: “We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train. It will be taken to the school separately.”

Harry's stomach lurched with nerves and Ron, he saw, looked a bit pale under his freckles. They crammed their pockets with the last of the sweets and joined the crowd thronging the corridor.

The train slowed down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out onto a tiny, dark platform. Harry shivered in the cold night air. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a familiar voice: “Firs' years! Firs' years over here! All right there, Harry?”

Hagrid's big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads.

“C'mon, follow me—any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years, follow me!”

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seamed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Harry thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Neville, the boy who kept losing his toad, sniffed once or twice.

“Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec,” Hagrid called over his shoulder, “jus' round this bend here.”

There was a loud “Oooooh!”

The narrow path had suddenly opened onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

“No more'n four to a boat!” Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Harry and Ron were followed into their boat by Neville and Hermione.

“Everyone in?” shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. “Right then—FORWARD!”

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

“Heads down!” yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

“Oy, you there! Is this your toad?” said Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.

“Trevor!” cried Neville blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.

They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door.

“Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?”

Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.

 

 


	2. II

The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Harry's first thought was that this was not someone to cross.

“The firs' years, Professor McGonagall,” said Hagrid.

“Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here.”

She pulled the door wide. The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of the Dursleys' house in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.

They followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. Harry could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right—the rest of the school must already be here—but Professor McGonagall showed the first years to a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” said Professor McGonagall. “The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your Houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your House will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room.

“The four Houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each House has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your House points, while any rule-breaking will lose House points. At the end of the year, the House with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever House becomes yours.

“The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting.”

Her eyes lingered for a moment on Neville's cloak, which was fastened under his left ear and on Ron's smudged nose. Harry nervously tried to flatten his hair.

“I shall return when we are ready for you,” said Professor McGonagall. “Please wait quietly.”

She left the chamber. Harry swallowed.

“How exactly do they sort us into Houses?” he asked Ron.

“Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking.”

Harry's heart gave a horrible jolt. A test? In front of the whole school? But he didn't know any magic yet—what on earth would he have to do? He hadn't expected something like this the moment they arrived. He looked around anxiously and saw that everyone else looked terrified, too. No one was talking much except Hermione Granger, who was whispering very fast about all the spells she'd learned and wondering which one she'd need. Harry tried hard not to listen to her. He'd never been more nervous, never, not even when he'd had to take a school report home to the Dursleys saying that he'd somehow turned his teacher's wig blue. He kept his eyes fixed on the door. Any second now, Professor McGonagall would come back and lead him to his doom.

Then something happened that made him jump about a foot in the air—several people behind him screamed.

“What the—?”

He gasped. So did the people around him. About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was saying, “Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance—”

“My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not even really a ghost—I say, what are you all doing here?”

A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years.

Nobody answered.

“New students!” said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them. “About to be Sorted, I suppose?”

A few people nodded mutely.

“Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!” said the Friar. “My old House, you know.”

“Move along now,” said a sharp voice. “The Sorting Ceremony's about to start.”

Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.

“Now, form a line,” Professor McGonagall told the first years, “and follow me.”

Feeling oddly as though his legs had turned to lead, Harry got into line behind a boy with sandy hair, with Ron behind him, and they walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

Harry had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering gold plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid looking at all the staring eyes, Harry looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. He heard Hermione whisper, “It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in _Hogwarts: A History_.”

It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn't simply open up to the heavens.

Harry quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Aunt Petunia wouldn't have let it in the house.

 _Maybe we have to try to get a rabbit out of it_ , Harry thought wildly—that seemed the sort of thing. Noticing that everyone in the hall was now staring at the hat, he stared at it, too. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth—and the hat began to sing:

 

“ _Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,_

_But don't judge on what you see._

_I'll eat myself if you can find_

_A smarter hat than me._

_You can keep your bowlers black,_

_Your top hats sleek and tall,_

_For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat_

_And I can cap them all._

_There's nothing hidden in your head_

_The Sorting Hat can't see,_

_So try me on and I will tell you_

_Where you ought to be._

_You might belong in Gryffindor,_

_Where dwell the brave at heart._

_Their daring, nerve, and chivalry_

_Set Gryffindors apart._

_You might belong in Hufflepuff,_

_Where they are just and loyal._

_Those patient Hufflepuffs are true_

_And unafraid of toil._

_Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,_

_If you've a ready mind,_

_Where those of wit and learning_

_Will always find their kind._

_Or perhaps in Slytherin_

_You'll make your real friends._

_Those cunning folk use any means_

_To achieve their ends._

_So put me on! Don't be afraid!_

_And don't get in a flap!_

_You're in safe hands, though I have none,_

_For I'm a Thinking Cap!”_

 

The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again.

“So we've just got to try on the hat!” Ron whispered to Harry. “I'll kill Fred, he was going on about wrestling a troll.”

Harry smiled weakly. Yes, trying on the hat was a lot better than having to do a spell, but he did wish they could have tried it on without everyone watching. The hat seemed to be asking rather a lot; Harry didn't feel brave or quick-witted or any of it at the moment. If only the hat had mentioned a House for people who felt a bit queasy, that would have been the one for him.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

“When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted,” she said. “Abbott, Hannah!”

A pink-faced girl with blond pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moment's pause—

“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat.

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. Harry saw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

“Bones, Susan!”

“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat again, and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.

“Boot, Terry!”

“RAVENCLAW!”

The table second from the left clapped this time; several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them.

“Brocklehurst, Mandy” went to Ravenclaw too, but “Brown, Lavender” became the first new Gryffindor, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers.

“Bulstrode, Millicent” then became a Slytherin, and the fourth table at the far right burst into cheers and applause.

He was starting to feel definitely sick now. He remembered being picked for teams during gym at his old school. He had always been last to be chosen, not because he was no good, but because no one wanted Dudley to think they liked him.

“Finch-Fletchley, Justin!”

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

Sometimes, Harry noticed, the hat shouted out the House at once, but at others it took a little while to decide. “Finnigan, Seamus,” the sandy-haired boy next to Harry in the line, sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.

“Granger, Hermione!”

Hermione almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly on her head.

“RAVENCLAW!” shouted the hat. Ron rolled his eyes.

A horrible thought struck Harry, as horrible thoughts always do when you're very nervous. What if he wasn't chosen at all? What if he just sat there with the hat over his eyes for ages, until Professor McGonagall jerked it off his head and said there had obviously been a mistake and he'd better get back on the train?

When Neville Longbottom, the boy who kept losing his toad, was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. The hat took a long time to decide with Neville. When it finally shouted, “GRYFFINDOR,” Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to “MacDougal, Morag” (“RAVENCLAW!”).

“Mal—” Professor McGonagall paused for a moment, her brow furrowed, before calling out the next name. “Malfoy, Draco!” As Draco made his way to the stool, Harry saw a look rather like relief on his face.

The hat took about ten seconds to declare him a Slytherin, and he went to join his friends Crabbe and Goyle at the Slytherin table.

There weren't many people left now.

“Moon”... “Nott”... “Parkinson”... then a pair of twin girls, “Patil” and “Patil”... then “Perks, Sally-Anne”... and then, at last—

“Potter, Harry!”

As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like hissing fires all over the hall.

“ _Potter_ , did she say?”

“ _The_ Harry Potter?”

The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him. Next second, he was looking at the black inside of the hat. He waited.

“Hmm,” said a small voice in his ear. “Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind, either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes—and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting... So where shall I put you?”

Harry gripped the edges of the stool and waited.

“Hmm... Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, there's no doubt about that...”

 _Are you sure about that?_ Not all of the Slytherins looked very friendly, but then again, the same could be said for every other House. At least he knew Draco, but what if Ron didn't end up in Slytherin with him?

“Yes, there's no doubt at all—you belong in SLYTHERIN!”

Harry heard the hat shout the last word to the whole hall. He took off the hat and walked shakily toward the Slytherin table. He was so relieved to have been chosen at all, he hardly noticed he was getting the loudest cheer yet. Percy the Prefect got up and shook his hand vigorously, and Draco grinned, scooting over on the bench to make room for him.

He could see the High Table properly now. At the end farthest from him sat Hagrid, who caught his eye and smiled. Harry grinned back. And there, in the center of the High Table, in a large gold chair, sat Albus Dumbledore. Harry recognized him at once from the card he'd gotten out of the Chocolate Frog on the train. Dumbledore's silver hair was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts. Harry spotted Professor Quirrell, too, the nervous young man from the Leaky Cauldron. He was looking very peculiar in a large purple turban.

And now there were only four people left to be sorted. “Thomas, Dean,” a boy even taller than Ron, joined the Gryffindor table. “Turpin, Lisa” became a Ravenclaw and then it was Ron's turn. His dark skin was slightly tinged with green by now. Harry crossed his fingers under the table, hoping against hope, but a second later the hat shouted, “HUFFLEPUFF!”

Disappointed, Harry watched as Ron collapsed into a seat at the Hufflepuff table and gave him a sad, resigned sort of smile.

“That's alright, my brother Charlie was in that House,” Percy said to Harry as “Zabini, Blaise” joined the Slytherin table. Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away.

Harry looked down at his empty gold plate. He had only just realized how hungry he was. The pumpkin pasties seemed ages ago.

Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

“Welcome!” he said. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

“Thank you!”

He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Harry didn't know whether to laugh or not.

“Is he—a bit mad?” he asked Percy uncertainly.

“Mad?” said Percy airily. “He's a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harry?”

Harry's mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.

The Dursleys had never exactly starved Harry, but he'd never been allowed to eat as much as he liked. Dudley had always taken anything that Harry really wanted, even if it made him sick. Harry piled his plate with a bit of everything except the peppermints and began to eat. It was all delicious.

“Hungry, Harry?” Draco asked with a chuckle.

Harry didn't want to explain his life with the Dursleys right now—he was having such a wonderful time not thinking about them. “I haven't eaten since breakfast,” he half-lied instead.

“Probably a good idea—they really outdo themselves with the feasts here.”

When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later the desserts appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding...

Harry helped himself to a treacle tart as the older students' conversations turned to how they'd spent their summer. Blaise Zabini began asking Percy about lessons, and Harry looked up at the High Table again. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet. As Harry watched, Professor McGonagall stood up and headed toward the far end of the table, nearest where the Slytherins sat, to speak with a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin sitting next to Professor Quirrell.

For a few moments, they spoke quietly, and then the teacher with the black hair turned his eyes to Harry—and then a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry's forehead.

“Ouch!” Harry clapped a hand to his head.

“What is it?” asked Percy.

“N-nothing.”

The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off was the feeling Harry had gotten from the teacher's look—a feeling that he didn't like Harry at all.

“Who's that teacher Professor McGonagall is talking to?” he asked Percy.

“Oh, him? That's Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, although he would prefer to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. He knows an awful lot about it, of course. And he's the Head of Slytherin House, so you'll be getting to know him soon enough.”

Harry wasn't sure he liked the sound of that.

After a few more moments, Snape stood up and swiftly left the Great Hall, while Professor McGonagall stepped out from behind the High Table and made her way between the Slytherin and Hufflepuff tables. She tapped Percy on the shoulder and said quietly, “Follow me, please.”

Looking puzzled, Percy stood up and followed her out of the hall.

“I wonder what that's about,” said Harry.

“Beats me,” replied Draco.

Before Harry could dwell on it further, the desserts disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The hall fell silent.

“Ahem—just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.

“First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.”

Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Weasley twins.

“I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.

“Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their House teams should contact Madam Hooch.

“And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death.”

Harry laughed, but he was one of the few who did.

“He's not serious, is he?” he muttered, half to himself.

“Must be,” said an older student. “It's odd, because he usually gives us a reason why we're not allowed to go somewhere—the forest's full of dangerous beasts, everyone knows that.”

“And now, before we go the bed, let us sing the school song!” cried Dumbledore. Harry noticed that the other teachers' smiles had become rather fixed.

Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick, as if he was trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words.

“Everyone pick their favorite tune,” said Dumbledore, “and off we go!”

And the school bellowed:

 

“ _Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,_

_Teach us something please,_

_Whether we be old and bald_

_Or young with scabby knees._

_Our heads could do with filling_

_With some interesting stuff,_

_For now they're bare and full of air,_

_Dead flies, and bits of fluff._

_So teach us things worth knowing,_

_Bring back what we've forgot,_

_Just do your best, we'll do the rest,_

_And learn until our brains all rot.”_

 

Everybody finished the song at different times. At last, only the Weasley twins were left singing along to a very slow funeral march. Dumbledore conducted their last few lines with his wand and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.

“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!”

The Slytherin first years followed Percy, who had returned halfway through the school song, through the chattering crowds out of the Great Hall, and across the entrance hall to a corridor that looked rather dark and damp. Harry's legs were like lead again, but only because he was so tired and full of food. He was too sleepy to even be surprised that the people in the portraits along the corridor whispered and pointed as they passed, or that Percy once led them through a doorway hidden behind a thick tapestry. They went deeper into what seemed like the dungeons, yawning and dragging their feet, and Harry was just wondering how much farther they had to go when they came to a sudden halt.

A bundle of walking sticks was floating in midair ahead of them, and as Percy took a step toward them, they started throwing themselves at him.

“Peeves,” Percy whispered to the first years. “A poltergeist.” He raised his voice. “Peeves—show yourself.”

A loud, rude sound, like the air being let out of a balloon, answered.

“Do you want me to go to the Bloody Baron?”

There was a pop, and a little man with wicked, dark eyes and a wide mouth appeared, floating cross-legged in the air, clutching the walking sticks.

“Ooooooooh!” he said with an evil cackle. “Ickle Firsties! What fun!”

He swooped suddenly at them. They all ducked.

“Go away, Peeves, or the Baron'll hear about this, I mean it!” barked Percy.

Peeves stuck out his tongue and vanished, dropping the walking sticks—which wound up hitting Vincent Crabbe on the head. They heard him zooming away, rattling coats of armor as he passed.

“You want to watch out for Peeves,” said Percy as they set off again. “Our House ghost, the Bloody Baron, is the only one who can control him—he won't even listen to us prefects. Here we are.”

The corridor ended abruptly with a stone wall, and they all looked around, confused. Harry was certain for a moment that Percy had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Then Percy said, “Caput Draconis,” and a door hidden in the wall slid open, admitting them.

The Slytherin common room seemed dreary at first glance, but a fire crackled merrily in the fireplace, flooding the room with warmth, and the room was full of squashy armchairs. Tapestries lined the walls and on the floor was a thick rug. Once Harry got used to it, he could see himself spending his time very comfortably here.

Percy directed the girls through one door to their dormitory and the boys through another. At the top of a small spiral staircase, they found their beds at last: five four-posters hung with emerald green, velvet curtains. Their trunks had already been brought up. Too tired to talk much, they pulled on their pajamas and fell into bed.

“Great food, wasn't it?” Draco muttered to Harry through the hangings; they'd made sure to get adjacent beds. “Night, Harry.”

He was going to respond in kind, but the bed was more comfortable than any he'd ever slept in, and he fell asleep almost immediately.

Perhaps Harry had eaten a bit too much, because he had a very strange dream. He was wearing Professor Quirrell's turban, which kept talking to him, telling him he must transfer to Gryffindor at once because he wasn't worthy of being a Slytherin. Harry told the turban it was a mistake, the Sorting Hat had placed him in Slytherin—he didn't have any friends in Gryffindor, and Hufflepuff would have made more sense—the turban got heavier and heavier; he tried to pull it off but it tightened painfully—and he was in the Great Hall and the whole school was laughing at him as he struggled with it—then the laughter melted into one single laugh, high and cold—there was a burst of green light and Harry woke, sweating and shaking.

He rolled over and fell asleep again, and when he woke the next day, he didn't remember the dream at all.

 


	3. III

“There, look.”

“Where?”

“Next to the blond kid.”

“Wearing the glasses?”

“Did you see his face?”

“Did you see his scar?”

Whispers followed Harry from the moment he left his dormitory the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at him, or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring. Harry wished they wouldn't, because he was trying to concentrate on finding his way to classes.

There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Harry was sure the coats of armor could walk.

The ghosts didn't help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. The Gryffindor ghost, Nearly Headless Nick, was always happy to point new students in the right direction, but Peeves the Poltergeist was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, “GOT YOUR CONK!”

Even worse than Peeves, if that was possible, was the caretaker, Argus Filch. Harry and Draco managed to get on the wrong side of him on their very first morning. Filch found them trying to force their way through a door that unluckily turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor. He wouldn't believe they were lost, was sure they were trying to break into it on purpose, and was threatening to lock them in the dungeons when they were rescued by Professor Quirrell, who was passing.

Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-colored creature with bulging, lamplike eyes just like Filch's. She patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she'd whisk off for Filch, who'd appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone (except perhaps the Weasley twins) and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts. The students all hated him, and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick.

And then, once you managed to find them, there were the classes themselves. There was a lot more to magic, as Harry quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words.

They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for.

Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staffroom fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates, and got Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up.

Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start of their first class he took the roll call, and when he reached Harry's name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight.

Professor McGonagall was again different. Harry had been quite right to think she wasn't a teacher to cross. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class.

“Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts,” she said. “Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned.”

Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but soon realized they weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson, no one had made any difference to their match. They had thought it would be impossible for brand-new students, but she showed them an example from an earlier class of Ravenclaw first-years; Hermione Granger had made her match all silver and pointy.

The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell's lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he'd met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting ride of a troublesome zombie, but they weren't sure they believed this story. For one thing, when Gregory asked eagerly to hear how Quirrell had fought off the zombie, Quirrell went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, they had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, and the Weasley twins insisted it was stuffed full of garlic as well, so Quirrell was protected wherever he went.

Harry was very relieved to find out that he wasn't miles behind everyone else. Lots of people had come from Muggle families and, like him, hadn't had any idea that they were witches and wizards. There was so much to learn that even people like Draco or Ron didn't have much of a head start.

He'd heard they would be having occasional classes with other Houses and Harry had been looking forward to sharing classes with the Hufflepuffs to see Ron, but by the first Friday, he'd barely seen him outside mealtimes in the Great Hall. Harry hoped he was making friends in his House—he felt slightly guilty for being put in a different House than Ron, but he didn't think Ron would have made a very good Slytherin, and he wouldn't have done well in Hufflepuff. Maybe if they'd all been in Gryffindor, they might have been better off—but then again, he couldn't really see Draco in scarlet.

Friday was an important day for Harry and Draco. They finally managed to find their way up to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once.

“What have we got today?” Harry asked Draco as he poured sugar on his porridge.

“Double Potions with the Gryffindors,” said Draco. “I guess we'll see if it's true that Snape favors us.”

Harry thought back to that cold blast of hate he'd felt from Snape's gaze and wondered what Potions would really be like.

Just then, the mail arrived. Harry had gotten used to this by now, but it had given him a bit of a shock on the first morning, when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners, and dropping letters and packages onto their laps.

Hedwig hadn't brought Harry anything so far. She sometimes flew in to nibble his ear and have a bit of toast before going off to sleep in the owlery with the other school owls. This morning, however, she fluttered down between the marmalade and the sugar bowl and dropped a note onto Harry's plate. Harry tore it open at once. It said, in a very untidy scrawl:

 

_Dear Harry,_

_I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three? I want to hear all about your first week. Send us an answer back with Hedwig._

_Hagrid_

 

Harry borrowed Draco's quill, scribbled _Yes, please, see you later_ on the back of the note, and sent Hedwig off again. “D'you want to come with me to see Hagrid this afternoon?” he asked Draco as he returned his quill.

“Sure.”

“Great. Hang on.” He hurried around the Slytherin table and went to where Ron was sitting with the Hufflepuffs, and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey, Harry!” Ron said with a grin. “How've classes been?”

“Just fine, but listen—Draco and I are going to see Hagrid this afternoon around three. D'you want to come with us?”

Ron leaned to the side to cast a curious glance at Draco. “Yeah, alright. I'll meet you in the Great Hall, then.”

It was lucky that Harry had tea with Hagrid to look forward to, because the Potions lesson turned out to be the worst thing that had happened to him so far.

At the start-of-term banquet, Harry had gotten the idea that Professor Snape disliked him. By the end of the first Potions lesson, he knew he'd been wrong. Snape didn't dislike Harry—he _hated_ him.

Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons, not far from the Slytherin common room. The Potions classroom was even colder than the rest of the dungeons, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.

Snape, like Flitwick, started the class by taking roll call, and like Flitwick, he paused at Harry's name.

“Ah, yes,” he said softly, “Harry Potter. Our new— _celebrity_.”

From across the aisle, he saw Blaise Zabini sniggering behind his hands. Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were black like Hagrid's, but they had none of Hagrid's warmth. They were cold and empty and made you think of dark tunnels.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making,” he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word—like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. “As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death—if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

More silence followed this little speech. Harry and Draco exchanged looks with raised eyebrows.

“Potter!” said Snape suddenly. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

 _Powdered root of what to an infusion of what?_ Harry glanced at Draco, who looked as stumped as he was; in front of him, Parvati Patil's hand shot into the air.

“I don't know, sir,” said Harry.

Snape's lips curled into a sneer.

“Tut, tut—fame clearly isn't everything.”

He ignored Parvati's hand.

“Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”

Parvati stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without leaving her seat, but Harry didn't have the faintest idea what a bezoar was. He tried not to look at Blaise, who was smirking at him.

“I don't know, sir.”

“Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?”

Harry forced himself to keep looking straight into those cold eyes. He _had_ looked through his books at the Dursleys', but did Snape expect him to remember everything in _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_?

Snape was still ignoring Parvati's quivering hand.

“What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

At this, Parvati stood up, her hand stretching toward the dungeon ceiling.

“I don't know,” said Harry quietly. “I think Parvati does, though, why don't you try her?”

A few people laughed; Harry caught Seamus's eye, and Seamus winked. Snape, however, was not pleased.

“Sit down,” he snapped at Parvati. “For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?”

There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape said, “And, Patil, a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for Potter's cheek.”

The smirks faded from the faces of the Gryffindors; Parvati twisted in her seat to shoot him a murderous glare. Even Draco seemed surprised by Snape's blatantly unfair treatment. Harry wasn't even in Gryffindor, and he'd still managed to lose a point for them.

Things didn't improve for Harry—or, really, for the Gryffindors—as the Potions lesson continued. Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Blaise, whom he seemed to like. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Blaise had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. Neville Longbottom had somehow managed to melt Seamus's cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.

“Idiot boy!” snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. “I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?”

Neville whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

“Take him up to the hospital wing,” Snape spat at Seamus. Then he rounded on Parvati and Lavender Brown, who had been working next to Neville.

“You—Patil—why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's another point lost for Gryffindor.”

This was so unfair, even to Harry, that he opened his mouth to argue, but Draco nudged him behind their cauldron.

“Don't push it,” he muttered. “Snape can turn very nasty.”

As they climbed the steps out of the classroom an hour later, Harry's mind was racing and his spirits were low. He'd lost a point for a different House, and it was only his first week— _why_ did Snape hate him so much?

“I've never heard of him doing anything like that before,” Draco said as they dropped off their books in their dormitory. “I mean, I know he takes off points from other Houses, but not... not like that.”

At five to three, they met Ron in the entrance hall, left the castle, and made their way across the grounds. Hagrid lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. A crossbow and a massive pair of galoshes were outside the front door.

When Harry knocked they heard a frantic scrabbling from inside and several booming barks. Then Hagrid's voice rang out, saying, “ _Back_ , Fang— _back_.”

Hagrid's big, hairy face appeared in the crack as he pulled the door open. “Hang on,” he said. “ _Back_ , Fang.”

He let them in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound.

There was only one room inside. Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling on the open fire, and in the corner stood a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it.

“Make yerselves at home,” said Hagrid, letting go of Fang, who bounded straight at Draco and started licking his ears. Like Hagrid, Fang was clearly not as fierce as he looked.

“Er—that's Draco, and this is Ron,” Harry told Hagrid, who was pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes onto a plate.

Hagrid cast a curious look at Draco, who was scratching Fang behind the ears, but settled his eyes on Ron's freckles. “Another Weasley, eh? I spent half me life chasin' yer twin brothers away from the forest.”

The rock cakes were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost broke their teeth, but they pretended to be enjoying them as they told Hagrid all about their first lessons. Fang rested his head on Harry's knee and drooled all over his robes.

The three were delighted to hear Hagrid call Filch “that old git.”

“An' as fer that cat, Mrs. Norris, I'd like ter introduce her to Fang sometime. D'yeh know, every time I go up ter the school, she follows me everywhere? Can't get rid of her—Filch puts her up to it.”

Harry told Hagrid about Snape's lesson. Hagrid, like Ron and Draco, told Harry not worry about it, that Snape liked hardly any of the students.

“But he seemed to really _hate_ me,” Harry said, thinking of how he'd lost a point for a House that wasn't even his.

“Rubbish!” said Hagrid. “Why should he?”

Yet Harry couldn't help thinking that Hagrid didn't quite meet his eyes when he said that.

“How's yer brother Charlie?” Hagrid asked Ron. “I liked him a lot—great with animals.”

Harry wondered if Hagrid had changed the subject on purpose. While Ron told Hagrid all about Charlie's work with dragons, Harry tried to catch Draco's eye, but he was intensely fixed on his tea; he seemed ill at-ease here. For some sort of distraction, Harry picked up a piece of paper that was lying on the table under the tea cozy. It was a cutting from the _Daily Prophet_ :

 

GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST

Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown.

Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.

“But we're not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what's good for you,” said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon.

 

Harry remembered Ron telling him on the train that someone had tried to rob Gringotts, but Ron hadn't mentioned the date.

“Hagrid!” said Harry. “That Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might've been happening while we were there!”

There was no doubt about it, Hagrid definitely didn't meet his eyes this time. He grunted and offered him another rock cake. Harry read the story again. _The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied earlier that same day._ Hagrid had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you could call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?

As Harry, Ron, and Draco walked back to the castle for dinner, their pockets weighed down with rock cakes they'd been too polite to refuse, Harry thought that none of the lessons he'd had so far had given him as much to think about as tea with Hagrid. Had Hagrid collected that package just in time? Where was it now? And did Hagrid know something about Snape that he didn't want to tell Harry?

 


	4. IV

Harry had never believed he would meet a boy he hated more than Dudley, but Blaise Zabini was quickly taking that dubious title. He wasn't sure _why_ Blaise seemed to hate him so much, but his antagonism made the feeling mutual. It wouldn't have been so bad if they were in different Houses, but Harry was forced to put up with him during every class. But it only got worse on Monday—he and Draco spotted a notice pinned up in the common room that made Harry groan. Flying lessons would be starting on Thursday, but at least they would be learning with the Gryffindors. He couldn't help but feel a small measure of relief that there might be others there to take some of Blaise's attention, even if he wished the Slytherins could have learned alongside the Hufflepuffs so Ron could have flown with him.

“Typical,” said Harry darkly. “Just what I always wanted. To make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of Blaise.”

He had been looking forward to flying more than anything else.

“You don't know that you'll make a fool of yourself,” said Draco reasonably. “Anyway, Zabini's always going on about how good he is at Quidditch, but I bet that's all talk.”

Blaise Zabini certainly did talk about flying a lot. He complained loudly about first years never getting on the House Quidditch teams and told long, boastful stories that always seemed to end with him narrowly escaping Muggles in helicopters. He wasn't the only one, though: Harry kept hearing from Seamus Finnegan at the Gryffindor table that he'd spent most of his childhood zooming around the countryside on his broomstick. Even Ron would tell anyone who'd listen about the time he'd almost hit a hang glider on Charlie's old broom. Everyone from wizarding families talked about Quidditch constantly. Ron had even had an argument with Dean Thomas about soccer. Ron couldn't see what was exciting about a game with only one ball where no one was allowed to fly.

Neville Longbottom had never been on a broomstick before in his life, because his grandmother had never let him near one. Privately, Harry felt she'd had good reason, because Neville managed to have an extraordinary number of accidents even with both feet on the ground.

The morning of their flying lessons, Harry instinctively looked up as the owls soared in, but he needn't have bothered. He hadn't had a single letter since Hagrid's note, something that Blaise had been quick to notice, of course. Blaise's owl was always bringing him packages of sweets from home, which he opened gloatingly just a few seats down. Even Draco offering to share his own sweets from home didn't quite lessen the sting.

A barn owl dropped a small package in front of Neville, and Harry tried to tune out everything around him and focus on his porridge, but he heard Neville say excitedly, “My gran sent me a Remembrall! She knows I forget things—this tells you if there's something you've forgotten to do. Look, you hold it tight like this, and if it turns red—oh...”

Harry half-turned, interested in spite of himself.

Neville's face had fallen; the glass ball in his hand seemed to be full of scarlet smoke. “...you've forgotten something,” he finished sadly.

“Useful thing, that,” Draco murmured.

Harry was just turning back to his breakfast when he heard an irritated, “Hey!” He turned back to see that Blaise Zabini—with Crabbe and Goyle in tow, no less—had managed to snatch the Remembrall out of Neville's hand.

Without thinking, Harry jumped to his feet with Draco only a half a second behind him. He was half-hoping for a reason to fight Blaise, but Professor McGonagall, who could spot trouble quicker than any teacher in the school, was there in a flash.

“What's going on?”

“Zabini's got my Remembrall, Professor.”

Scowling, Blaise dropped the Remembrall back onto the table.

“Just looking,” he said, and after a flash of a sneer in Harry and Draco's direction, he slunk away with Crabbe and Goyle behind him.

“So much for your bodyguards,” Harry half-joked as they sat back down.

“I figured it would happen. They never liked me much anyway.”

“Why not?”

“Their families and mine don't get along well,” Draco said, but Harry couldn't help but notice that he'd taken a second too long to answer.

He hoped that if Draco was lying, it was for a good reason.

 

At three-thirty that afternoon, Harry, Draco, and the other Slytherins hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under their feet as they marched down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance.

The Gryffindors were there already, and so were twenty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. Harry had heard some of the older students complain about the school brooms, saying that some of them started to vibrate if you flew too high, or always flew slightly to the left.

Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk.

“Well, what are you all waiting for?” she barked. “Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up.”

Harry glanced down at his broom. It was old and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles.

“Stick out your right hand over your broom,” called Madam Hooch at the front, “and say, 'Up!'”

“UP!” everyone shouted.

Harry's broom jumped into his hand at once, but it was one of the few that did. Vincent Crabbe's had simply rolled over on the ground, and Neville's hadn't moved at all. Perhaps brooms, like horses, could tell when you were afraid, thought Harry; there was a quaver in Neville's voice that said only too clearly that he wanted to keep his feet on the ground.

Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. Harry and Draco were delighted when she told Zabini he'd been doing it wrong for years.

“Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard,” said Madam Hooch. “Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle—three—two—”

But Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the ground, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch's lips.

“Come back, boy!” she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle—twelve feet—twenty feet. Harry saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and—

WHAM—a thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay facedown on the grass in a heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started to drift lazily toward the forbidden forest and out of sight.

Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his. “Broken wrist,” Harry heard her mutter. “Come on, boy—it's all right, up you get.”

She turned to the rest of the class.

“None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You will leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear.”

Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.

No sooner were they out of earshot than Zabini burst into laughter.

“Did you see his face, the great lump?”

It felt like Harry and Draco were the only two Slytherins not laughing with him.

“Shut up, Zabini,” snapped Parvati Patil.

“Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?” said Pansy Parkinson, one of the Slytherin girls. “Never thought _you'd_ like fat little crybabies, Parvati.”

“Look!” said Zabini, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. “It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him.”

The Remembrall glittered in the sun as he held it up.

Harry took an unconscious step forward. “Give that here, Blaise,” he said quietly. Everyone stopped talking to watch.

Zabini smiled nastily.

“Not a chance, _Potter_. I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find—how about—up a tree?”

“Give it _here_!” Harry yelled, but Zabini had leapt onto his broomstick and taken off. He hadn't been lying, he _could_ fly well. Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak he called, “Come and get it, Potter!”

Harry grabbed his broom.

Draco put his hand on Harry's arm. “Are you sure about this?” he whispered. “This isn't your fight.”

“I can't stand him—he deserves to get shown up.”

Draco smiled suddenly, reassuringly. “Make him look like an idiot.”

Blood was pounding in his ears. He mounted his broom and kicked hard against the ground and up, up he soared; wind rushed through his hair, and his robes whipped out behind him—and in a rush of fierce, giddy joy he realized he'd found something he could do without being taught—this was easy, this was _wonderful_. He pulled his broomstick up a little to take it even higher, and heard screams and gasps of other students back on the ground and an encouraging cheer from Draco.

He turned his broomstick sharply to face Zabini in midair. Zabini looked stunned.

“Give it here,” Harry called, “or I'll knock you off that broom!”

“Oh, yeah?” said Zabini, trying to sneer, but looking worried.

Harry knew, somehow, what to do. He leaned forward and grasped the broom tightly in both hands, and it shot toward Zabini like a javelin. Zabini only just got out of the way in time; Harry made a sharp about-face and held the broom steady. A few people below were clapping.

“No Crabbe and Goyle up here to save your neck, Zabini,” Harry called.

The same thought seemed to have struck Zabini.

“Catch it if you can, then!” he shouted, and he threw the glass ball high into the air and streaked back toward the ground.

Harry saw, as though in slow motion, the ball rise up in the air and then start to fall. He leaned toward and pointed his broom handle down—next second he was gathering speed in a steep dive, racing the ball—wind whistling in his ears, mingled with the screams of people watching—he stretched out his hand—a foot from the ground he caught it, just in time to pull his broom straight, and he toppled gently onto the grass with the Remembrall clutched safely in his fist.

“MISTER POTTER!”

His heart sank faster than he'd just dived. Professor Snape of all people was striding toward them. He got to his feet, trembling, as the rest of the class quickly stepped aside to let Professor Snape pass.

“ _Never—_ in all my time at Hogwarts—how _dare_ you—”

“It wasn't his fault, Professor—”

“Be quiet, Mr. Malfoy—”

“But he—”

“That's _enough_ , Malfoy. Potter, follow me, _now_.”

Harry caught sight of Zabini, Crabbe, and Goyle's triumphant faces and Draco's worried expression as he left, walking numbly in Professor Snape's wake as he strode toward the castle. He was going to be expelled, he just knew it. Snape would be merciless. He wanted to say something to defend himself, but there seemed to be something wrong with his voice. Snape was sweeping along without even looking at him; he had to jog to keep up. Now he'd done it. He hadn't even lasted two weeks. He'd be packing his bags in ten minutes. What would the Dursleys say when he turned up on the doorstep?

Up the front steps, up the marble staircase inside, and still Snape didn't say a word to him. He wrenched open doors and marched along corridors with Harry trotting miserably behind him. Maybe he was taking him to Dumbledore. He thought of Hagrid, expelled but allowed to stay on as gamekeeper. Perhaps he could be Hagrid's assistant. His stomach twisted as he imagined it, watching Draco and Ron and the others becoming fully-trained witches and wizards while he stumped around the grounds carrying Hagrid's bag.

Professor Snape stopped outside a classroom and rounded on Harry, his voice barely above a whisper. “Let me be perfectly clear with what I'm about to say. What you did was _extremely_ dangerous, as well as a flagrant flouting of rules, and had you been injured, you would have received no sympathy from me.” He ground his teeth, staring at Harry intently. “You are very lucky that you are not receiving detention or losing any House points. That being said, that little stunt of yours was impressive, which brings me to why we're here.” Snape held up a finger. “Don't move.”

He opened the door to the classroom and poked his head inside. “Professor Flitwick, will you send out Flint?”

 _Flint?_ Was Snape talking about Marcus Flint? Flint was a Slytherin fifth year—what on earth could Snape want with him?

Harry was right—it was Marcus Flint who came out of the classroom, looking confused.

“Follow me,” said Snape, and they marched on up the corridor while Flint looked curiously at Harry.

“In here.”

Snape pointed them into a classroom that was empty except for Peeves, who was busy writing rude words on the blackboard.

“Out, Peeves!” Snape roared. Peeves threw the chalk into a bin, which clanged loudly, and he swooped out cursing. Snape slammed the door behind the poltergeist and turned to face the two boys.

“Potter, this is Marcus Flint. Flint—I've found you a Seeker.”

Flint's expression changed from puzzlement to delight.

“Are you serious, Professor?”

“Absolutely,” said Snape, and it looked like it pained him to admit it. “Potter is a natural. I've never seen anything like it. Was that your first time on a broomstick, Potter?”

Harry nodded silently, still a bit clueless. Snape had already told him he wasn't even getting detention, but it sounded like Snape wanted to put him on the Quidditch team.

“He caught that thing in his hand after a fifty-foot dive,” Snape told Flint.

Harry didn't realize Snape had seen that much.

“I haven't seen a Seeker in all my time here who could have done it.”

Flint looked triumphant, like all of his dreams had come true at once.

“Ever seen a game of Quidditch, Potter?” he asked.

“Flint here is the captain of the Slytherin team,” Snape explained.

“He's got just the build for a Seeker, too,” said Flint, now circling Harry and looking him up and down. “Light—speedy—we'll have to get him a decent broom, Professor—a Nimbus Two Thousand or a Cleansweep Seven, I'd say.”

“I shall speak to Professor Dumbledore and see if we can't bend the first-year rule. Heaven knows our other Seeker prospects for this year are dismal, and we're used to having a first-rate team.”

He looked down his nose at Harry.

“I want to hear you're training hard, Potter, or I may change my mind about punishing you.”

The coldness in his tone was enough to convince Harry that Snape wasn't kidding.

“Yes, Professor,” he said, hoping he sounded sure of himself.

 

“You're _joking_.”

It was dinnertime. Harry had just finished telling Draco what had happened when he'd left the grounds with Professor Snape. Draco had a piece of shepherd's pie halfway to his mouth, but he'd forgotten all about it.

“ _Seeker_?” he said, with a touch of what might have been jealousy in his voice. “But first years _never—_ you must be the youngest House player in about—”

“—a century,” said Harry, shoveling pie into his mouth. He felt particularly hungry after the excitement of the afternoon. “Flint told me.”

Draco was so amazed that he just sat and gaped at Harry.

“I start training next week,” said Harry. “Only don't tell anyone—Flint wants to keep it a secret.”

Draco had barely promised not to say a word when one of Harry's least-favorite people turned up: Zabini, with Crabbe and Goyle right behind him.

“Having a last meal, Potter? When are you getting on the train back to the Muggles?”

“You're a lot braver now that you're back on the ground and you've got your little friends with you,” said Harry coolly. There was of course nothing at all little about Crabbe and Goyle, but as the High Table was full of teachers, neither of them could do more than crack their knuckles and scowl.

“I'd take you on anytime on my own,” said Zabini. “Tonight, if you want. Wizard's duel. Wands only—no contact. What's the matter? Never heard of a wizard's duel before, I suppose?”

“Of course he has,” said Draco, finally setting down his fork. “I'm his second, who's yours?”

Zabini looked at Crabbe and Goyle, sizing them up.

“Crabbe,” he said. “Midnight all right? We'll meet you in the trophy room; that's always unlocked, and no one's gonna walk in like they could in the common room.”

When Zabini had gone, Draco and Harry looked at each other.

“What _is_ a wizard's duel?” said Harry. “And what do you mean, you're my second?”

“Well, a second is there to take over if you die,” said Draco, getting started at last on his cold pie. Catching the look on Harry's face, he added quickly, “But people only die in proper duels, you know, with real wizards. The most you and Zabini'll be able to do is send sparks at each other. Neither of you knows enough magic to do any real damage. I bet he expected you to refuse, anyway.”

“And what if I wave my wand and nothing happens?”

“Throw it away and punch him on the nose,” Draco suggested.

“Don't you know any curses you could teach me?”

He looked taken aback—and a bit hurt. “Of course I don't. Why would you think that?”

Harry immediately felt guilty. “I just... your family...” He didn't want to come right out and say that he expected Draco knew curses because he came from a family of Dark wizards, but Draco caught the gist.

“I'm not my father, and I don't want to be,” he muttered. “No, I don't know any curses.”

“Why are you asking about curses?”

It was Ron, sliding next to Harry at the Slytherin table.

Harry glanced around quickly to make sure they weren't being overheard. “Blaise Zabini challenged me to a wizard's duel tonight.”

Ron's eyebrows disappeared into his hair. “You said yes, right?”

“Of course he did,” said Draco.

“Where is it?” Ron asked excitedly. “D'you already have a second? Can I come?”

“It's in the trophy room, and Draco's my second,” said Harry. Ron seemed encouraging which reassured Harry slightly. “I want you to be there, but...”

“Zabini'd probably feel threatened if he saw someone else there,” said Draco. “You'd have to hide or something.”

Ron scoffed. “No problem—we should head there from the Hufflepuff common room.”

“Would we be allowed in?”

Ron shrugged. “Us Hufflepuffs are a relaxed bunch. Plenty of people have friends from other Houses spend time in the common room.”

“All right. We'll meet you outside the Hufflepuff common room at nine-thirty.”

“Excuse me.”

Harry and Draco both looked up. It was Hermione Granger, the Ravenclaw.

“Can't a person eat in peace in this place?” said Draco.

Hermione ignored him and spoke to Harry.

“I couldn't help overhearing what you and Zabini were saying earlier—”

“Bet you could,” Ron muttered.

“—and you _mustn't_ go wandering around the school at night, think of the points you'll lose your House if you're caught, and you're bound to be. It's really very foolish of you.”

“And it's really none of your business,” said Harry.

“Good-bye,” said Ron.

 

All the same, it wasn't what you'd call the perfect end to the day, Harry thought, as he sank into a squashy armchair in the Hufflepuff common room. Despite the cozy atmosphere in the common room and Draco and Ron's reassurances, he couldn't help feeling apprehensive about the duel. Ron had spent all evening giving him advice such as “If he tries to curse you, you'd better dodge it, because I can't remember how to block them.” There was a very good chance they were going to get caught by Filch or Mrs. Norris, and Harry felt he was pushing his luck, breaking another school rule today. On the other hand, Zabini's sneering face kept looming at him from the fireplace—this was his big chance to beat Zabini face-to-face. He couldn't miss it.

“Half-past eleven,” Draco muttered at last, “we'd better go.”

Harry patted his pockets, making sure he had his wand, as they crept across the common room to the entrance, trying to be as quiet as possible even though they were the last ones in the common room. They'd just made it out into the corridor, thinking they were home free, when the three of them came face-to-face with Hermione Granger.

“I really can't believe the three of you are going to do this.”

“ _You_!” hissed Ron furiously. “Go back to bed!”

“I almost found your brother and told him,” Hermione snapped, crossing her arms and glaring at Ron. Then she focused her angry gaze on Harry and Draco. “Percy—he's _your_ House prefect, he'd put a stop to this.”

Harry couldn't believe anyone could be so interfering.

“Come on,” he said to Ron and Draco, pushing past her, but Hermione wasn't going to give up that easily. She followed the three of them down the corridor, hissing at them like an angry goose.

“Don't you _care_ about your Houses, do you _only_ care about yourselves, _I_ don't want Gryffindor to win the House Cup again.”

“Go away,” Ron snapped. “Go back to your dormitory.”

Hermione let out a huff but grumbled, “It's on the fifth floor.” She continued to follow them, seething. They'd barely started to ascend the marble staircase when she said, “Fine, I'm coming with you.”

“You are _not_ ,” Harry said.

“D'you think I'm just going to wait around for Filch to catch me? If he finds all four of us I'll tell him the truth, that I was trying to stop you, and you can back me up.”

“You've got some nerve—”

“Shh!” Harry hissed. “Fine, but if you get us caught, I'll never rest until I've learned that Curse of the Bogies that Quirrell told us about, and used it on you.”

Hermione opened her mouth, perhaps to tell him exactly how to use the Curse of the Bogies, but Draco hissed at them to be quiet again and led them forward.

They flitted along corridors striped with bars of moonlight from the high windows. At every turn Harry expected to run into Filch or Mrs. Norris, but they were lucky. They sped up a staircase to the third floor and tiptoed toward the trophy room.

Zabini and Crabbe weren't there yet. The crystal trophy cases glimmered where the moonlight caught them. Cups, shields, plates, and statues winked silver and gold in the darkness. They edged along the walls, keeping their eyes on the doors at either end of the room. Harry took out his wand in case Zabini leapt in and started at once. The minutes crept by.

“He's late, maybe he's chickened out,” Draco whispered.

Then a noise in the next room made them jump. Harry had only just raised his wand when they heard someone speak—and it wasn't Zabini.

“Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner.”

It was Filch speaking to Mrs. Norris. Horror-struck, Harry waved madly at the other three to follow him as quickly as possible; they scurried silently toward the door, away from Filch's voice. Ron's robes had barely whipped around the corner when they heard Filch enter the trophy room.

“They're in here somewhere,” they heard him mutter, “probably hiding.”

“This way!” Harry mouthed to the others and, petrified, they began to creep down a long gallery full of suits of armor. They could hear Filch getting nearer—and then Draco tripped, tipping into Ron, and the pair of them toppled right into a suit of armor.

The clanging and crashing were enough to wake the whole castle.

“RUN!” Harry yelled, and the four of them sprinted down the gallery (Draco panting, “Sorry, sorry, sorry” the whole way), not looking back to see whether Filch was following—they swung around the doorpost and galloped down one corridor then another, Harry in the lead, without any idea where they were or where they were going—they ripped through a tapestry and found themselves in a hidden passageway, hurtled along it and came out near the Charms classroom, which they knew was miles from the trophy room.

“I think we've lost him,” Harry panted, leaning against the cold wall and wiping his forehead. Draco was bent double, wheezing and spluttering.

“I— _told—_ you,” Hermione gasped, clutching at the stitch in her chest, “I—told—you.”

“We've got to get back to our common rooms,” said Ron, “quickly as possible.”

“Zabini tricked you,” Hermione said to Harry. “You realize that, don't you? He was never going to meet you—Filch knew that someone was going to be in the trophy room, Zabini must have tipped him off.”

Harry thought she was probably right, but he wasn't going to tell her that.

“Let's go.”

It wasn't going to be that simple. They hadn't gone more than a dozen paces when a doorknob rattled and something came shooting out of a classroom in front of them.

It was Peeves. He caught sight of them and gave a squeal of delight.

“Shut up, Peeves—please—you'll get us thrown out.”

Peeves cackled.

“Wandering around and midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty.”

“Not if you don't give us away, Peeves, please.”

“Should tell Filch, I should,” said Peeves in a saintly voice, but his eyes glittered wickedly. “It's for your own good, you know.”

“Get out of the way,” snapped Ron, taking a swipe at Peeves—this was a big mistake.

“STUDENTS OUT OF BED!” Peeves bellowed, “STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!”

Ducking under Peeves, they ran for their lives, right to the end of the corridor where they slammed into a door—and it was locked.

“This is it!” Ron moaned, as they pushed helplessly at the door. “We're done for! This is the end!”

They could hear footsteps, Filch running as fast as he could toward Peeve's shouts.

“Oh, move over,” Hermione snarled. She grabbed Harry's wand, tapped the lock, and whispered, “ _Alohomora_!”

They lock clicked and the door swung open—they piled through it, shut it quickly, and pressed their ears against it, listening.

“Which way did they go, Peeves?” Filch was saying. “Quick, tell me.”

“Say 'please.'”

“Don't mess with me, Peeves, now _where did they go_?”

“Shan't say nothing if you don't say please,” said Peeves in his annoying singsong voice.

“All right— _please_.”

“NOTHING! Ha haaa! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha ha! Haaaaaa!” And they heard the sound of Peeves whooshing away and Filch cursing in rage.

“He thinks this door is locked,” Harry whispered. “I think we'll be okay—what _is_ it, Draco?” For Draco had been hissing, trying to get his attention, for the last minute.

Harry turned around—and saw, quite clearly, what. For a moment, he was sure he'd walked into a nightmare—this was too much, on top of everything that had happened so far.

They weren't in a room, as he had supposed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden.

They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs.

It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and Harry knew that they only reason they weren't already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant.

Harry groped for the doorknob—between Filch and death, he'd take Filch.

They fell backward—Harry slammed the door shut, and they ran, they almost flew, back down the corridor. Filch must have hurried off to look for them somewhere else, because they didn't see him anywhere, but they hardly cared—all they wanted was to put as much space as possible between them and that monster. They didn't stop running until they reached the marble staircase.

“What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?” said Ron finally. “If any dog needs exercise, that one does.”

Hermione had got both her breath and her bad temper back again. “You don't use your eyes, any of you, do you?” she snapped. “Didn't you see what it was standing on?”

“The floor?” Draco suggested. “I wasn't looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads.”

“No, _not_ the floor. It was standing on a trapdoor. It's obviously guarding something.”

She took a step up the staircase to head back to the Ravenclaw common room before turning back to glare at them.

“I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed—or worse, expelled. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed.” She stormed up the stairs.

Ron stared after her, his mouth open.

“No, we don't mind,” he said. “You'd think we dragged her along, wouldn't you?”

But Hermione had given him something else to think about as he and Draco finally made it back to their dormitory, thankfully without running into Peeves or Filch again. (Zabini and Crabbe were both fast asleep, and it took all Harry's self-control not to shake Blaise awake to punch him.) The dog was guarding something... What had Hagrid said? Gringotts was the safest place in the world for something you wanted to hide—except perhaps Hogwarts.

It looked as though Harry had found out where the grubby little package from vault seven hundred and thirteen was.

 


	5. V

Zabini couldn't believe his eyes when he saw that Harry and Draco were still at Hogwarts the next morning in the dormitory, looking tired but perfectly cheerful. Indeed, by the next morning Harry and Draco thought that meeting the three-headed dog had been an excellent adventure, and they were quite keen to have another one—and based on the thumbs-up and grin Ron flashed them from the Hufflepuff table at breakfast, he agreed with them. In the meantime, Harry filled Draco in about the package that seemed to have been moved from Gringotts to Hogwarts—while silently vowing to tell Ron as well once he got a free moment—and they spent a lot of time wondering what could possibly need such heavy protection.

“It's either really valuable or really dangerous,” said Ron an hour later.

“Or both,” added Draco.

But as all they knew for sure about the mysterious object was that it was about two inches long, they didn't have much chance of guessing what it was without further clues.

Hermione was now refusing to speak to the three of them, but she was such a bossy know-it-all that they saw this as an added bonus. All they really wanted now was a way of getting back at Zabini, even Ron, who seemed to take the slight just as personally as Harry and Draco, and to their great delight, such a thing arrived in the mail about a week later.

As the owls flooded into the Great Hall as usual, everyone's attention was caught at once by a long, thin package carried by six large screech owls. Harry was just as interested as everyone else to see what was in this large parcel, and was amazed when the owls soared down and dropped it right in front of him, knocking his bacon to the floor. They had hardly fluttered out of the way when another owl dropped a letter on top of the parcel.

Harry ripped open the letter first, which was lucky, because it said:

 

DO NOT OPEN THE PARCEL AT THE TABLE.

It contains your new Nimbus Two Thousand, but I don't want everybody knowing you have a broomstick or they'll all want one. Meet Flint tonight on the Quidditch field at seven o'clock for your first training session.

Again, I remind you to train hard and not abuse this opportunity, or I will reconsider being so lenient.

Professor S. Snape

 

Harry had difficulty hiding his glee as he handed the note to Draco to read.

“A Nimbus Two Thousand! That's the best broom on the market, that is.”

They left the hall quickly, wanting to unwrap the broomstick in private before their first class, but halfway across the entrance hall, they found their way back to the dormitory barred by Crabbe and Goyle. Zabini seized the package from Harry and felt it.

“That's a broomstick,” he said, throwing it back to Harry with a mixture of jealousy and spite on his face. “You'll be in for it this time, Potter, first years aren't allowed them.”

Draco couldn't resist it.

“It's not any old broomstick,” he said, “it's a Nimbus Two Thousand. What did you say you've got at home, Zabini, a Comet Two Sixty?” Draco grinned at Harry. “Comets look flashy, but they're not in the same league as the Nimbus.”

“What, like you've got anything better at home, Malfoy? I heard your father doesn't even like you enough to get his little girl a broomstick,” Zabini snapped back.

What little color was in Draco's face drained out—Harry had never seen him look so angry. Before he could answer, Professor Flitwick appeared at Zabini's elbow.

“Not arguing, I hope, boys?” he squeaked.

“Potter's been sent a broomstick, Professor,” said Zabini quickly.

“Yes, yes, that's right,” said Professor Flitwick, beaming at Harry. “The headmaster told me all about the special circumstances, Potter. And what model is it?”

“A Nimbus Two Thousand, sir,” said Harry, fighting not to laugh at the look of horror on Zabini's face. “And it's really thanks to Blaise here that I've got it,” he added.

He and Draco sidestepped Crabbe and Goyle, smothering their laughter at Zabini's obvious rage and confusion.

“Well, it's true,” Harry chortled as they reached the corridor to their dormitory. “If he hadn't stolen Neville's Remembrall I wouldn't be on the team.”

“So I suppose you think that's a reward for breaking the rules?” came an angry voice from down the corridor. Hermione was stomping toward them, looking disapprovingly at the package in Harry's hand.

“I thought you weren't speaking to us,” said Harry.

“Yes, don't stop now,” added Draco, “it's doing us so much good.”

Hermione marched away with her nose in the air.

“What did Zabini mean by that crack earlier, anyway?” asked Harry once he was sure Hermione was out of earshot.

Draco let out a sigh as he pushed open the door to the common room. During breakfast, it was devoid of people. “He's trying to make me angry because when I was born, my parents named me Delphina.”

Harry was confused. “Why would they—?”

“I was born a girl.”

Maybe it was because he was used to being treated poorly by the Dursleys, but Harry was immediately angry at Zabini on Draco's behalf. “Well he's an idiot. Next time he makes fun of you, I'll punch him.”

The corner of Draco's mouth twitched up into a half-smile. “You don't have to.”

“It's not like he wouldn't have it coming.”

“Thanks.” He looked reassured, as though he had been worried about Harry's reaction. “It's almost time for class—you'd better stash that before we're late.”

Harry had a lot of trouble keeping his mind on his lessons that day. It kept wandering down to the dormitory where his new broomstick was lying under his bed, or straying off to the Quidditch field where he'd be learning to play that night. He bolted his dinner that evening without noticing what he was eating, and then rushed back to the dungeons with Draco to unwrap the Nimbus Two Thousand at last.

“Wow,” Draco sighed as the broomstick rolled onto Harry's bedspread.

Even Harry, who knew nothing about the different brooms, thought it looked wonderful. Sleek and shiny, with a mahogany handle, it had a long tail of neat, straight twigs and _Nimbus Two Thousand_ written in gold near the top.

As seven o'clock drew nearer, Harry left the castle and set off in the dusk toward the Quidditch field. He'd never been inside the stadium before. Hundreds of seats were raised in stands around the field so that the spectators were high enough to see what was going on. At either end of the field were three golden poles with hoops on the end. They reminded Harry of the little plastic sticks Muggle children blew bubbles through, except that they were fifty feet high.

Too eager to fly again to wait for Flint, Harry mounted his broomstick and kicked off from the ground. What a feeling—he swooped in and out of the goalposts and then sped up and down the field. The Nimbus Two Thousand turned wherever he wanted at his lightest touch.

“Hey, Potter, come down!”

Marcus Flint had arrived. He was carrying a large wooden crate under his arm. Harry landed next to him.

“Very nice,” said Flint appreciatively. “I see what Snape meant... you really are a natural. I'm just going to teach you the rules this evening, then you'll be joining team practice three times a week.”

He opened the crate. Inside were four different-sized balls.

“Right,” said Flint. “Now, Quidditch is easy enough to understand, even if it's not too easy to play. There are seven players on each side. Three of them are called Chasers.” He gestured to himself. “I'm one of the Chasers for Slytherin. The other two are Graham Montague and Adrian Pucey.”

“Three Chasers,” Harry repeated, as Flint took out a bright red ball about the size of a soccer ball.

“This ball's called the Quaffle,” said Flint. “The Chasers throw the Quaffle to each other and try and get it through one of the hoops to score a goal. Ten points every time the Quaffle goes through one of the hoops. Follow me?”

“The Chasers throw the Quaffle and put it through the hoops to score,” Harry recited. “So—that's sort of like basketball on broomsticks with six hoops, isn't it?”

Flint tilted his head to the side. “What's basketball?” he asked curiously.

“Never mind,” said Harry quickly.

“Now, there's another player on each side who's called the Keeper. For us, that's Miles Bletchley. They have to fly around the hoops and stop the other team from scoring.”

“Three Chasers, one Keeper,” said Harry, who was determined to remember it all. “And they play with the Quaffle. Okay, got that. So what are they for?” He pointed at the three balls left inside the box.

“I'll show you now,” said Flint. “Er, you're going to want to take this.”

He handed Harry a small club, a bit like a short baseball bat.

“I'm going to show you what the Bludgers do,” Flint said. “These two are the Bludgers.”

He showed Harry two identical balls, jet black and slightly smaller than the red Quaffle. Harry noticed that they seemed to be straining to escape the straps holding them inside the box.

“Stand back,” Flint advised Harry. He bent down and freed one of the Bludgers.

At once, the black ball rose high in the air and then pelted straight at Harry's face. Harry swung at it with the bat to stop it from breaking his nose, and sent it zigzagging away into the air—it zoomed around their heads and shot at Flint, who dived on top of it and managed to pin it to the ground.

“See?” Flint panted, forcing the struggling Bludger back into the crate and strapping it down safely. “The Bludgers rocket around, trying to knock players off their brooms. That's why you have two Beaters on each team. We have Cassie Lightwood and Julian Avery—it's their job to protect their side from the Bludgers and try and knock them toward the other team. So, think you've got all that?”

“Three Chasers try and score with the Quaffle; the Keeper guards the goalposts; the Beaters keep the Bludgers away from their team,” Harry reeled off.

“Very good,” said Flint.

“Er—have the Bludgers ever killed anyone?” Harry asked, hoping he sounded offhand.

“Never at Hogwarts. We've had a couple of broken jaws but nothing worse than that. Now, the last member of the team is the Seeker. That's you. And you don't have to worry about the Quaffle or the Bludgers—”

“—unless they crack my head open.”

“Don't worry, Cass and Jules are more than a match for the Bludgers—the way Cass handles them, you'd think she was a human Bludger herself.”

Flint reached into the crate and took out the fourth and last ball. Compared with the Quaffle and the Bludgers, it was tiny, about the size of a large walnut. It was bright gold and had little fluttering silver wings.

“ _This_ ,” said Flint, “is the Golden Snitch, and it's the most important ball of the lot. It's very hard to catch because it's so fast and difficult to see. It's the Seeker's job to catch it. You've got to weave in and out of the Chasers, Beaters, Bludgers, and Quaffle to get it before the other team's Seeker, because whichever Seeker catches the Snitch wins their team an extra hundred and fifty points, so they nearly always win. That's why Seekers get fouled so much. A game of Quidditch only ends when the Snitch is caught, so it can go on for ages—I think the record is three months, they had to keep bringing on substitutes so the players could get some sleep.

“Well, that's it—any questions?”

Harry shook his head. He understood what he had to do all right, but it was doing it that was going to be the problem.

“We won't practice with the Snitch yet,” said Flint, carefully shutting it back inside the crate. “It's too dark, we might lose it. Let's try you out with a few of these.”

He pulled a bag of ordinary golf balls out of his pocket and a few minutes later, he and Harry were up in the air, Flint throwing golf balls as hard as he could in every direction for Harry to catch.

Harry didn't miss a single one, and Flint was delighted. After half an hour, night had really fallen and they couldn't carry on.

“That Quidditch Cup'll have our name on it this year,” said Flint happily as they trudged back up to the castle. “I wouldn't be surprised if you turn out better than our last Seeker, Victoria Case, and she could have played for England if she hadn't decided to join the Ministry.”

 

Perhaps it was because he was so busy now, what with Quidditch practice three evenings a week on top of all his homework, but Harry could hardly believe it when he realized that he'd already been at Hogwarts two months. The castle felt more like home than Privet Drive ever had. His lessons, too, were becoming more and more interesting now that they had mastered the basics.

On Halloween morning they woke to the delicious smell of baking pumpkin wafting through the corridors. Even better, Professor Flitwick announced in Charms that he thought they were ready to start making objects fly, something they had all been dying to try since they'd seen him make Pansy's cat zoom around the classroom. Professor Flitwick put the class into pairs to practice. Harry's partner was Tracey Davis (which was a relief, because both Crabbe and Goyle were scowling and cracking their knuckles at him and Zabini seemed to be glaring daggers at him).

“Now, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practicing!” squeaked Professor Flitwick, perched on top of his pile of books as usual. “Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too—never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest.”

It was very difficult, but nowhere near as eventful as the Double Charms Ron had with Hermione. The two of them had been paired up and, according to Ron, she'd stayed true to form as an insufferable know-it-all. No matter how much he tried, he wasn't able to levitate the feather they were supposed to be sending skyward.

“You're saying it wrong,” Hermione had told him. “It's Wing- _gar_ -dium Levi- _o_ -sa, make the 'gar' nice and long.”

“You do it then, if you're so clever,” Ron snarled back.

Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her gown, flicked her wand, and said, _“Wingardium Leviosa!”_

Their feather rose off the desk and hovered about four feet above their heads.

Professor Flitwick, of course, had nothing but praise for Hermione. “Oh, well done! Everyone see here, Miss Granger's done it!”

“It's no wonder no one can stand her,” Ron said, finishing his story as he, Harry, and Draco pushed their way through the crowded corridor. “She's a nightmare, honestly.”

Someone knocked into Harry as they hurried past him. It was Hermione. Harry caught a glimpse of her face—and was startled to see that she was in tears.

“I think she heard you.”

“So?” said Ron, but he looked a bit uncomfortable. “She must've noticed she's got no friends.”

They didn't see Hermione all afternoon. On their way down to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast, they overheard Padma Patil telling her friend Mandy Brocklehurst that Hermione was crying in the girls' bathroom and wanted to be left alone. Ron looked still more awkward at this, but a moment later they had entered the Great Hall, where the Halloween decorations put Hermione out of their minds.

A thousand live bats fluttered from the walls and ceiling while a thousand more swooped over the tables in low black clouds, making the candles in the pumpkins stutter. The feast appeared suddenly on the golden plates, as it had at the start-of-term banquet.

Harry was just helping himself to a baked potato when Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the hall, his turban askew and terror on his face. Everyone stared as he reached Professor Dumbledore's chair, slumped against the table, and gasped, “Troll—in the dungeons—thought you ought to know.”

He then sank to the floor in a dead faint.

There was an uproar. It took several purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Professor Dumbledore's wand to bring silence.

“Prefects,” he rumbled, “lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!”

Percy was in his element.

“Follow me! Stick together, first years! No need to fear the troll if you follow my orders! Stay close behind me, now. Make way, first years coming through! Excuse me, I'm a prefect!”

“How could a troll get in?” Harry asked as they followed Percy toward the common room.

“Don't ask me, they're supposed to be really stupid,” said Ron. The Hufflepuff and Slytherin first years were traveling down to their common rooms together, enabling Ron to talk with Harry and Draco.

“Maybe Peeves let it in for a Halloween joke,” Draco suggested.

They passed different groups of people hurrying in different directions. As they jostled their way through a crowd of confused second-years, Draco suddenly grabbed their arms.

“I've just thought—Hermione.”

“What about her?” asked Harry.

Comprehension dawned on Ron's face. “She doesn't know about the troll.” He peered over the heads of the other first years. “Come on—Percy's not looking. Let's go find her.”

Ducking down, they doubled back, slipped down a deserted side corridor, and hurried off toward the girls' bathroom. They had just turned the corner when they heard quick footsteps behind them.

“Percy!” hissed Ron, pulling them behind a large stone griffin.

Peering around it, however, they saw not Percy but Snape. He crossed the corridor and disappeared from view.

“What's he doing?” Draco whispered. “Why isn't he down in the dungeons with the rest of the teachers?”

“Search me.”

Quietly as possible, they crept along the next corridor after Snape's fading footsteps.

“He's heading for the third floor,” Harry said, but Ron held up his hand.

“Can you smell something?”

They sniffed and a foul stench reached their nostrils, a mixture of old socks and the kind of public toilet no one seems to clean.

And then they heard it—a low grunting, and the shuffling footfalls of gigantic feet. Draco pointed—at the end of a passage to the left, something huge was moving toward them. They shrank into the shadows and watched as it emerged into a patch of moonlight.

It was a horrible sight. Twelve feet tall, its skin was a dull, granite gray, its great lumpy body like a boulder with its small bald head perched on top like a coconut. It had short legs thick as tree trunks with flat, horny feet. The smell coming from it was incredible. It was holding a huge wooden club, which it dragged along the floor because its arms were so long.

The troll stopped next to a doorway and peered inside. It waggled its long ears, making up its tiny mind, then slouched slowly into the room.

“The key's in the lock,” Harry muttered. “We could lock it in.”

“Good idea,” said Ron nervously.

They edged toward the open door, mouths dry, praying the troll wasn't about to come out of it. With one great leap, Harry managed to grab the key, slam the door, and lock it.

“ _Yes!”_

Flushed with their victory, they started to run back up the passage, but as they reached the corner, they heard something that made their hearts stop—a high, petrified scream—and it was coming from the chamber they'd just locked up.

“Oh, no,” said Draco, pale as the Bloody Baron.

“It's the girls' bathroom!” Harry gasped.

“Hermione's in there,” groaned Ron.

It was the last thing they wanted to do, but what choice did they have? Wheeling around, they sprinted back to the door and turned the key, fumbling in their panic. Harry pulled the door open and they ran inside.

Hermione Granger was shrinking against the wall opposite, looking as if she was about to faint. The troll was advancing on her, knocking the sinks off the walls as it went.

“Confuse it!” Harry said desperately to Ron and Draco, and, seizing a tap, he threw it as hard as he could against the wall.

The troll stopped a few feet from Hermione. It lumbered around, blinking stupidly, to see what had made the noise. Its mean little eyes saw Draco, who had a shard of sink in his hands. It hesitated, then made for him instead, lifting its club as it went.

“Oy, pea-brain!” yelled Ron from the other side of the chamber, and he threw a metal pipe at it. The troll didn't even seem to notice the pipe hitting its shoulder, but it heard the yell and paused again, turning its ugly snout toward Ron instead, giving Harry and Draco time to run around it.

“Come on, run, _run_!” Harry yelled at Hermione, trying to pull her toward the door, but she couldn't move, she was still flat against the wall, her mouth open with terror.

The shouting and the echoes seemed to be driving the troll berserk. It roared again and started toward Ron, who was nearest and had no way to escape.

Harry watched as Draco then did something that was both very brave and very stupid: he took a great running jump and managed to fasten his arms around the troll's neck from behind. The troll couldn't feel him hanging there, but even a troll will notice if you stick a long bit of wood up its nose, and Draco's wand had been in his hand when he'd jumped—it had gone straight up one of the troll's nostrils.

Howling with pain, the troll twisted and flailed its club, with Draco clinging on for dear life while Harry could only watch helplessly—any second, the troll was going to rip him off or catch him in a terrible blow with the club.

Hermione had sunk to the floor in fright; Ron pulled out his own wand—not knowing what he was going to do he heard himself cry the first spell that came into his head: _“Wingardium Leviosa!”_

The club suddenly flew out of the troll's hand, rose high, high up into the air, turned slowly over—and dropped, with a sickening crack, into its owner's head. The troll swayed on the spot and then fell flat on its face, with a thud that made the whole room tremble.

Harry and Draco got to their feet. Draco was shaking and out of breath. Ron was standing there with his wand still raised, staring at what he had done.

It was Hermione who spoke first. “Is it—dead?”

“I don't think so,” said Harry, “I think it's just been knocked out.”

“Nice one, that,” added Draco. He bent down and pulled his wand out of the troll's nose. It was covered in what looked like lumpy gray glue. “Urgh—troll boogers.”

He wiped it on the troll's trousers.

A sudden slamming and loud footsteps made the four of them look up. They hadn't realized what a racket they had been making, but of course, someone downstairs must have heard the crashes and the troll's roars. A moment later, Professor McGonagall had come bursting into the room, followed closely by Snape, with Quirrell bringing up the rear. Quirrell took one look at the troll, let out a faint whimper, and sat quickly down on a toilet, clutching his heart.

Snape bent over the troll. Professor McGonagall was looking at Ron, Draco, and Harry. Harry had never seen her look so angry. Her lips were white. Hopes of winning fifty points for their Houses faded quickly from Harry's mind.

“What on earth were you thinking of?” said Professor McGonagall, with cold fury in her voice. Harry looked from Draco, carefully studying his shoes, to Ron, still standing with his wand in the air. “You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitories?”

Snape gave Harry a swift, piercing look. Harry looked at the floor, suddenly remembering that it was only with Snape's grace that he had avoided punishment for the flying incident. He wished Ron would put his wand down.

Then a small voice came out of the shadows.

“Please, Professor McGonagall—they were looking for me.”

“Miss Granger!”

Hermione had managed to get to her feet at last.

“I went looking for the troll because I—I thought I could deal with it on my own—you know, because I've read all about them.”

Ron dropped his wand. Hermione Granger, telling a downright lie to a teacher?

“If they hadn't found me, I'd be dead by now. Harry distracted it, Draco stuck his wand up its nose, and Ron knocked it out with its own club. They didn't have time to come and fetch anyone. It was about to finish me off with they arrived.”

Harry, Ron, and Draco tried to look as though this story wasn't new to them.

“Well—in that case...” said Professor McGonagall, staring at the four of them, “Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?”

Hermione hung her head. Harry was speechless. Hermione was the last person to do anything against the rules, and here she was, pretending she had, to get them out of trouble. It was as if Snape had started handing out sweets.

“Miss Granger, five points will be taken from Ravenclaw for this,” said Professor McGonagall. “I'm very disappointed in you. If you're not hurt at all, you'd better get off to Ravenclaw Tower. Students are finishing the feasts in their Houses.”

Hermione left.

Professor McGonagall turned to Harry, Ron, and Draco.

“Well, I still say you were lucky, but not many first years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll. Mr. Weasley, you have earned Hufflepuff five points, and Mr. Potter, Mr. Malfoy, you have earned Slytherin five points each. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. You may go.”

They hurried out of the chamber and didn't speak until they'd reached the end of the corridor.

“We should have gotten more than five points each, you know,” Ron grumbled.

“But it was good of her to get us out of trouble like that,” Draco pointed out.

“Mind you, we _did_ save her,” said Harry. “Of course, she might not have needed saving if we hadn't locked the thing in with her.”

They stopped when they ran into Hermione, waiting for them on the landing on the second floor. She peered at each one of them in turn. “Thank you,” she said, turning slightly pink. “No one else would do that for me.”

None of them quite knew what to say, but she just smiled and scurried up the stairs, heading back to her dormitory.

The three of them continued to their own common rooms, but from that moment on, Hermione Granger became their friend. There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.

 


	6. VI

As they entered November, the weather turned very cold. The mountains around the school became icy gray and the lake like chilled steel. Every morning the ground was covered in frost. Hagrid could be seen from the upstairs windows defrosting broomsticks on the Quidditch field, bundled up in a long moleskin overcoat, rabbit fur gloves, and enormous beaverskin boots.

The Quidditch season had begun. On Saturday, Harry would be playing in his first match after weeks of training: Slytherin versus Gryffindor. If Slytherin won, they would move up to second place in the House Championship.

Hardly anyone had seen Harry play because Flint had decided that, as their secret weapon, Harry should be kept, well, secret. But the news that he was playing Seeker had leaked out somehow, and Harry didn't know which was worse—people telling him he'd be brilliant or people telling him they'd be running around underneath him holding a mattress.

It was really lucky now that Harry had Hermione as a friend. He didn't know how he'd have gotten through all his homework without her, what with all the last-minute Quidditch practice Flint was making them do. She had also lent him _Quidditch Through the Ages_ , which turned out to be a very interesting read.

Harry learned that there were seven hundred ways of committing a Quidditch foul and that all of them had happened during a World Cup match in 1473; that Seekers were usually the smallest and fastest players, and that most serious Quidditch accidents seemed to happen to them; that although people rarely died playing Quidditch, referees had been known to vanish and turn up months later in the Sahara Desert.

Hermione had become a bit more relaxed about breaking rules since Harry, Ron, and Draco had saved her from the mountain troll, and she was much nicer for it. The day before Harry's first Quidditch match the four of them were out in the freezing courtyard during break, and she had conjured them up a bright blue fire that could be carried around in a jam jar. They were standing with their backs to it, getting warm, when Snape crossed the yard. Harry noticed at once that Snape was limping. He, Draco, Ron, and Hermione moved closer to block the fire from view; they were sure it wouldn't be allowed. Unfortunately, something about their guilty faces caught Snape's eye. He limped over. He hadn't seen the fire, but he seemed to be looking for a reason to tell them off anyway.

“What's that you've got there, Weasley?”

It was _Quidditch Through the Ages_. Harry had let Ron leaf through it for a few moments. Ron showed Snape the book.

“Library books are not to be taken outside the school,” said Snape. “Give it to me. Five points from Hufflepuff.”

“I let him have it,” Harry said, hoping to mitigate the damage. “I checked it out from the library.”

“Did I ask, Potter?” Without another word, he turned around.

“He's just made that rule up,” Draco grumbled as Snape limped away.

“Wonder what's wrong with his leg?” Hermione asked.

“Dunno, but I hope it's really hurting him,” said Ron bitterly.

 

The Slytherin common room was very noisy that evening. Harry and Draco sat together underneath one of the small, sturdy windows near the ceiling; Harry hadn't noticed it upon first arriving in the Slytherin common room two and a half months before, but there were actually windows that looked out into the lake, rather like a Muggle aquarium. To try to keep his mind occupied, he peered up at the window, but it was too dark to see anything now.

He felt restless. He wanted _Quidditch Through the Ages_ back, to take his mind off his nerves about tomorrow. Why should he be afraid of Snape? Getting up, he told Draco he was going to ask Snape if he could have it.

“Better you than me,” Draco said, pulling his Charms homework out and getting started, but Harry had an idea that Snape wouldn't refuse if there were other teachers listening.

He made his way to the staffroom and knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again. Nothing.

Perhaps Snape had left the book in there? It was worth a try. He pushed the door open and peered inside—and a horrible scene met his eyes.

Snape and Filch were inside, alone. Snape was holding his robes above his knees. One of his legs was bloody and mangled. Filch was handing Snape bandages.

“Blasted thing,” Snape was saying. “How are you supposed to keep your eyes on all three heads at once?”

Harry tried to shut the door quietly, but—

“POTTER!”

Snape's face was twisted with fury as he dropped his robes quickly to hide his leg. Harry gulped.

“I just wondered if I could have my book back.”

“GET OUT! _OUT_!”

Harry left, before he could confirm his theory that Snape might actually take points from Slytherin. He sprinted back to the common room.

“Did you get it?” Draco asked as Harry dropped back into the seat across from him. “What's the matter?”

In a low whisper, Harry told him what he'd seen.

“You know what this means?” he finished breathlessly. “He tried to get past that three-headed dog at Halloween! That's where he was going when we saw him—he's after whatever it's guarding! And I'd bet my broomstick _he_ let that troll in, to make a diversion!”

“We have to tell Ron and Hermione,” Draco said immediately. He shoveled his homework back into his backpack and the two of them set off to find the others.

A half an hour later, after sending a Ravenclaw third year to fetch Hermione and then doubling back to the Hufflepuff common room, the four of them hid in a corner so Harry could recount everything that happened—and his theory on why.

“No—Snape wouldn't do that,” Hermione said, her eyes wide. “I know he's not very nice, but he wouldn't try to steal something Dumbledore was keeping safe.”

“Honestly, Hermione, you think all teachers are saints or something,” snapped Ron. “I'm with Harry on this. I wouldn't put anything past Snape.”

“Me neither,” Draco agreed. “But what's he after? What's that dog guarding?”

They threw around suggestions for a few minutes longer, but it was getting close to lights-out, and Harry, Draco, and Hermione had to return to their dormitories. Harry went to bed with his head buzzing with the same questions.

Goyle was snoring loudly, but Harry couldn't sleep. He tried to empty his mind—he needed to sleep, he had to, he had his first Quidditch match in a few hours—but the expression on Snape's face when Harry had seen his leg wasn't easy to forget.

 

The next morning dawned very bright and cold. The Great Hall was full of the delicious smell of fried sausages and the cheerful chatter of everyone looking forward to a good Quidditch match.

“You've got to eat some breakfast,” Draco wheedled.

“I don't want anything.”

“Just a bit of toast.”

“I'm not hungry.”

Harry felt terrible. In an hour's time, he'd be walking onto the field.

“Harry, you need your strength,” Cassie Lightwood said. “Seekers are always the ones who get clobbered by the other team.”

“Thanks, Cass,” said Harry, watching her pile ketchup onto her sausages.

 

By eleven o'clock the whole school seemed to be out in the stands around the Quidditch pitch. Many students had binoculars. The seats night be raised high in the air, but it was still difficult to see what was going on sometimes.

Draco and Hermione joined Ron and several other Hufflepuffs up in the top row. As a surprise for Harry, they had painted a large banner on a sheet that Scabbers had ruined. It said _Potter for President_ , and Ernie MacMillan, who was good at drawing, had done a large Slytherin serpent underneath. Then Hermione had performed a tricky little charm so that the paint flashed different colors.

Meanwhile, in the locker room, Harry and the rest of the team were changing into their green Quidditch robes (Gryffindor would be playing in red).

Flint cleared his throat for silence.

“Okay, men,” he said.

“And women,” said Cassie.

“And women,” Flint agreed. “This is it.”

“The big one,” Graham Montague said.

“The one we've all been waiting for,” said Adrian Pucey.

“He gives this speech every year,” said Miles Bletchley.

“Shut up, you lot,” Flint said sharply, but he was grinning. “This is the best team Slytherin's had in years. We're going to win. I know it.” He glanced down at his watch. “Right. It's time. Good luck, all of you.”

Harry followed Cassie and Julian out of the locker room and, hoping his knees weren't going to give way, walked onto the field to loud cheers. It was strange how very big the field seemed to be now that the stands were packed.

Madam Hooch was refereeing. She stood in the middle waiting for the two teams, her broom in hand.

“Now, I want a nice fair game—all of you,” she said, once they were all gathered around her. Harry noticed that she seemed to be speaking particularly to the Beaters, who stood out on both team with their clubs. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the fluttering banner high above, flashing _Potter for President_ over the crowd. His heart skipped. He felt braver, more determined.

“Mount your brooms, please.”

Harry clambered onto his Nimbus Two Thousand.

Madam Hooch gave a loud blast on her silver whistle.

Fifteen brooms rose up, high, high into the air. They were off.

“And the Quaffle is taken immediately by Chaser Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor—what an excellent Chaser that girl is, and rather attractive, too—”

“JORDAN!”

“Sorry, Professor.”

A Gryffindor friend of the Weasley twins, Lee Jordan, was doing the commentary for the match, watched closely by Professor McGonagall.

“And she's really belting along up there, a neat pass to—intercepted by Slytherin Chaser Adrian Pucey, Pucey passes to Captain Marcus Flint, off he goes, flying like an eagle—Gryffindor Chaser Alicia Spinnet gains the Quaffle, barrels down the pitch, Spinnet passes to Katie Bell, Bell lines up, she's gonna sc—nope, stopped by Slytherin Keeper Miles Bletchley and Bletchley tosses the Quaffle, Flint's got it, nice dive there around Bell, up off the field and— _ouch—_ that must have hurt, Flint hit in the back of the head with a Bludger, nice interception by Gryffindor and now Johnson has the Quaffle and she's speeding toward the goalposts—blocked by a second Bludger, sent his way by Slytherin Beater Cassie Lightwood, and now Slytherin Chaser Graham Montague is in possession, clear field ahead—dodges a speeding Bludger, the goalposts are ahead—Montague throws—Gryffindor Captain Oliver Wood dives—come on, Wood—misses—SLYTHERIN SCORE!”

Slytherin cheers filled the cold air. Harry glanced toward the banner his friends had made for him and grinned—they were all jumping around in celebration.

“Budge up there, move along.”

“Hagrid!”

Hermione, Ron, and Draco squeezed together to give Hagrid enough space to join them.

“Been watchin' from me hut,” said Hagrid, patting a large pair of binoculars around his neck, “but it isn't the same as bein' in the crowd. No sign of the Snitch yet, eh?”

“Nope,” said Draco. “Harry hasn't had much to do yet.”

“Kept outta trouble, though, that's somethin',” said Hagrid, raising his binoculars and peering skyward at the speck that was Harry.

Way above them, Harry was gliding over the game, squinting about for some sign of the Snitch. This was part of his and Flint's game plan.

“Keep out of the way until you catch the Snitch,” Flint had said. “We don't want you attacked before you have to be.”

When Montague had scored, Harry had done a couple of loop-the-loops to let off his feelings. Now he was back to staring around for the Snitch. Once he caught sight of a flash of gold, but it was just a reflection from Julian's wristwatch, and once a Bludger decided to come pelting his way, more like a cannonball than anything, but Harry dodged it and Cassie came chasing after it.

“All right there, Harry?” she had time to yell as she beat the Bludger toward Alicia Spinnet.

“Gryffindor in possession,” Lee Jordan was saying, “Chaser Bell ducks two Bludgers, the Gryffindor Beaters, and Chaser Pucey, and speeds toward the—wait a moment—was that the Snitch?”

A murmur ran through the crowd as Katie Bell dropped the Quaffle, too busy looking over her shoulder at the flash of gold that had passed her left ear.

Harry saw it. In a great rush of excitement he dived downward after the streak of gold. Gryffindor Seeker Derek Diggs had seen it, too. Neck and neck they hurtled toward the Snitch—all the Chasers seemed to have forgotten what they were supposed to be doing as they hung in midair to watch.

Harry was faster than Diggs—he could see the little round ball, wings fluttering, darting up ahead—he put on an extra spurt of speed—

WHAM! A roar of rage echoed through the stands below—one of the Gryffindor Beaters had slammed a Bludger directly at him, and Harry's broom spun off course and careened into Diggs, Harry holding on for dear life.

He thought it was entirely unfair, but Madam Hooch didn't call a foul. He knew that was a Beater's role, after all, but he didn't like being on the other end of the attack.

In all the confusion, of course, the Golden Snitch had disappeared from sight again.

The game resumed with Flint taking the Quaffle and zooming down the field toward the Gryffindor goalposts. Harry tried to keep focused on finding the Snitch as he circled the field, but it was becoming increasingly difficult with all the chaos around him.

It was as Harry dodged another Bludger, which went spinning dangerously past his head, that it happened. His broom gave a sudden, frightening lurch. For a split second, he thought he was going to fall. He gripped the broom tightly with both his hands and knees. He'd never felt anything like that.

It happened again. It was as though the broom was trying to buck him off. But Nimbus Two Thousands did not suddenly decide to buck their riders off. Harry tried to turn back toward the Slytherin goalposts—he had half a mind to ask Flint to call time-out—and then he realized that his broom was completely out of his control. He couldn't turn it. He couldn't direct it at all. It was zigzagging through the air, and every now and then making violent swishing movements that almost unseated him.

Lee was still commentating.

“Gryffindor in possession—Johnson with the Quaffle—passes Montague—passes Flint—hit hard in the face by a Bludger—hope her nose is okay—GRYFFINDOR SCORE!”

The Gryffindors were cheering now. No one seemed to have noticed that Harry's broom was behaving strangely. It was carrying him slowly higher, away from the game, jerking and twitching as it went.

“Dunno what Harry thinks he's doing,” Hagrid mumbled. He stared through his binoculars. “If I didn' know any better, I'd say he'd lost control of his broom... but he can't have...”

Suddenly, people were pointing up at Harry all over the stands. His broom had started to roll over and over, with him only just managing to hold on. Then the whole crowd gasped. Harry's broom had given a wild jerk and Harry swung off it. He was now dangling from it, holding on with only one hand.

“Did something happen when the Bludger hit him?” Justin Finch-Fletchley whispered.

“Can't have,” Hagrid said, his voice shaking. “Can't nothin' interfere with a broomstick except powerful Dark magic—no kid here could do that to a Nimbus Two Thousand.”

At these words, Hermione seized Hagrid's binoculars, but instead of looking up at Harry, she started looking frantically at the crowd.

“What are you doing?” moaned Ron, gray-faced.

“I knew it,” Hermione gasped. “Snape—look.”

Ron grabbed the binoculars, peered through them, and then handed them to Draco. Snape was in the middle of the stands opposite them. He had his eyes fixed on Harry and was muttering nonstop under his breath.

“He's doing something—jinxing the broom,” said Hermione.

“What should we do?”

“Leave it to me.”

Before either Ron or Draco could say another word, Hermione had disappeared. Draco turned the binoculars back on Harry. His broom was vibrating so hard, it was almost impossible for him to hang on much longer. The whole crowd was on its feet, watching, terrified, as Cassie and Julian flew up to try to pull Harry to safety onto one of their brooms, but it was no good—every time they got near him, the broom would jump higher still. They dropped lower and circled beneath him, obviously hoping to catch him if he fell.

“Come on, Hermione,” Draco muttered desperately.

Hermione had fought her way across to the stand where Snape stood, and was now racing along the row behind him; she didn't even stop to say sorry as she knocked Professor Quirrell headfirst into the row in front. Reaching Snape, she crouched down, pulled out her wand, and whispered a few well-chosen words. Bright blue flames shot from her wand onto the hem of Snape's robes.

It took perhaps thirty seconds for Snape to realize he was on fire. A sudden yelp told her she had done her job. Scooping the fire off him into a little jar in her pocket, she scrambled along the back row—Snape would never know what had happened.

It was enough. Up in the air, Harry was suddenly able to clamber back onto his broom.

He was speeding toward the ground when the crowd saw him clap his hand to his mouth as though he was about to be sick—he hit the field on all fours—coughed—and something gold fell into his hand.

“I've got the Snitch!” he shouted, waving it above his head, and the game ended in complete confusion.

“He didn't _catch_ it, he nearly _swallowed_ it,” Wood was still howling twenty minutes later, but it made no difference—Harry hadn't broken any rules and Slytherin students were still cheering about the results—Slytherin had one by one hundred and seventy points to eighty. Harry heard none of this, though. He was being made a cup of strong tea back in Hagrid's hut with Draco, Ron, and Hermione.

“It was Snape,” Ron was explaining. “We saw him. He was cursing your broomstick, muttering, he wouldn't take his eyes off you.”

“Rubbish,” said Hagrid, who hadn't heard a word of what had gone on next to him in the stands. “Why would Snape do somethin' like that?”

The four of them looked at one another, wondering what to tell him. Harry decided on the truth.

“I found out something about him,” he told Hagrid. “He tried to get past that three-headed dog on Halloween. It bit him. We think he was trying to steal whatever it's guarding.”

Hagrid dropped the teapot.

“How do you know about Fluffy?”

“ _Fluffy_?”

“Yeah—he's mine—bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year—I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the—”

“Yes?” said Harry eagerly.

“Now don't ask me anymore,” said Hagrid gruffly. “That's top secret, that is.”

“But Snape's trying to _steal_ it.”

“Rubbish,” said Hagrid again. “Snape's a Hogwarts teacher, he'd do nothin' of the sort.”

“So why did he just try to kill Harry?” cried Hermione.

The afternoon's events certainly seemed to have changed her mind about Snape.

“I know a jinx when I see one, Hagrid, I've read all about them! You've got to keep eye contact, and Snape wasn't blinking at all, I saw him!”

“I'm tellin' yeh, yer wrong!” said Hagrid hotly. “I don' know why Harry's broom acted like that, but Snape wouldn' try to kill a student! Now, listen to me, all four of yeh—yer meddlin' in things that don' concern yeh. It's dangerous. You forget that dog, an' you forget what it's guardin', that's between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicolas Flamel—”

“Aha!” said Draco. “So there's someone called Nicolas Flamel involved, is there?”

Hagrid looked furious with himself.

 


	7. VII

Christmas was coming. One morning in mid-December, Hogwarts woke to find itself covered in several feet of snow. The lake froze solid and the Weasley twins were punished for bewitching several snowballs so that they followed Quirrell around, bouncing off the back of his turban. The few owls that managed to battle their way through the stormy sky to deliver mail had to be nursed back to health by Hagrid before they could fly off again.

No one could wait for the holidays to start. While the Slytherin common room and the Great Hall had roaring fires, the drafty corridors had become icy and a bitter wind rattled the windows in the classrooms. Worst of all were Professor Snape's classes, where their breath rose in a mist before them and they kept as close as possible to their hot cauldrons.

“I do feel so sorry,” said Zabini, one Potions class, “for all those people who have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas because they're not wanted at home.”

He was looking over at Harry as he spoke. Crabbe and Goyle chuckled. Harry, who was measuring out powdered spine of lionfish, ignored them. Zabini had been even more unpleasant than usual since the Quidditch match. Despite the Slytherin victory, his personal animosity toward Harry was so great that he tried to get everyone laughing at how a wide-mouthed tree frog would be replacing Harry as Seeker next. Then he'd realized that nobody found this funny, because they were all so impressed at the way Harry had managed to stay on his bucking broomstick. So Zabini, jealous and angry, had gone back to taunting Harry about having no proper family.

It was true that Harry wasn't going back to Privet Drive for Christmas. Professor Snape had come around the week before, making a list of students who would be staying for the holidays, and Harry had signed up at once. He didn't feel sorry for himself at all; this would probably be the best Christmas he'd ever had. Ron and his brothers were staying, too, because Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were going to Romania to visit Charlie. Draco, on the other hand, was going home—but not by choice.

“Mother will be heartbroken if I don't,” he explained, with an air of frustrated resignation.

When they left the dungeons at the end of Potions, they found a large fir tree blocking the corridor ahead. Two enormous feet sticking out at the bottom and a loud puffing sound told them that Hagrid was behind it.

“Hi, Hagrid, want any help?” Draco asked, sticking his head through the branches.

“Nah, I'm all right, thanks, Draco.”

“Would you mind moving out of the way?” came Zabini's cold lilt from behind them. “Some of us actually have places we're _wanted_ , Malfoy.”

The only thing that kept Draco from launching himself at Zabini was Harry holding him back by his robes.

Zabini, Crabbe, and Goyle pushed roughly past them and the tree, scattering needles everywhere and smirking.

“I'll get him,” said Draco, grinding his teeth and making a very rude gesture at Zabini's retreating back, “one of these days, I'll get him—”

“I hate him, too,” Harry agreed.

“Come on, cheer up, it's nearly Christmas,” said Hagrid. “Tell yeh what, come with me an' see the Great Hall, looks a treat.”

“I thought he hated me, but he _really_ seems to have it in for you,” Harry said quietly so Hagrid wouldn't overhead. They followed him into the Great Hall, where Professors McGonagall and Flitwick were busy with the Christmas decorations.

“Yeah, well, he's an angry little git.”

“Yeah, but _why_?” This was the part that didn't make sense to Harry. “What happened?”

“Well, I don't know why he hates you, but he hates _me_ because... well, he's mad that I told him you were my friend. He doesn't think we should associate, you see. So ever since then, Crabbe and Goyle sided against me and Zabini's had it in for me.”

“Ah, Hagrid, the last tree—put it in the far corner, would you?”

Harry had been about to press Draco further, but his attention was suddenly seized by the Great Hall. It looked spectacular. Festoons of holly and mistletoe hung all around the walls, and no less than twelve towering Christmas trees stood around the room, some sparkling with tiny icicles, some glittering with hundreds of candles.

“How many days you got left until yer holidays?” Hagrid asked them.

“Just one,” said Draco. “And that reminds me—Harry, we need to meet Hermione and Ron in the library. We've only got half an hour before lunch.”

“Oh, yeah, you're right,” said Harry, tearing his eyes away from Professor Flitwick, who had golden bubbles blossoming out of his wand and was trailing them over the branches of the new tree.

“The library?” Hagrid asked, following them out of the hall. “Just before the holidays? Bit keen, aren't yeh?”

“Oh, we're not working,” Harry told him brightly. “Ever since you mentioned Nicolas Flamel we've been trying to find out who he is.”

“You _what_?” Hagrid looked shocked. “Listen here—I've told yeh—drop it. It's nothin' to you what that dog's guarding.”

“We just want to know who Nicolas Flamel is, that's all,” said Draco.

“Unless you'd like to save us the trouble?” Harry suggested. “We must've been through hundreds of books already and we can't find him anywhere—just give us a hint—I know I've read his name somewhere.”

“I'm sayin' nothin',” said Hagrid flatly.

“Just have to find out for ourselves, then,” said Draco, and they left Hagrid looking disgruntled and hurried off to the library.

They had indeed been searching books for Flamel's name ever since Hagrid had let it slip, because how else were they going to find out what Snape was trying to steal? The trouble was, it was very hard to know where to begin, not knowing what Flamel might have done to get himself into a book. He wasn't in _Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century_ , or _Notable Magical Names of Our Time_ ; he was missing, too, from _Important Modern Magical Discoveries_ , and _A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry_. And then, of course, there was the sheer size of the library; tens of thousands of books; thousands of shelves; hundreds of narrow rows.

Hermione took out a list of subjects and titles she had decided to search while Ron and Draco strode off down a row of books and started pulling them off the shelves at random. Harry wandered over to the Restricted Section. He had been wondering for awhile if Flamel wasn't somewhere in there. Unfortunately, you needed a specially signed note from one of the teachers to look in any of the restricted books, and he knew he'd never get one. These were the books containing powerful Dark Magic never taught at Hogwarts, and only ready by older students studying advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts.

“What are you looking for, boy?”

“Nothing,” said Harry.

Madam Pince the librarian brandished a feather duster at him.

“You'd better get out, then. Go on—out!”

Wishing he'd been a bit quicker at thinking up some story, Harry left the library. The four of them had already agreed they'd better not ask Madam Pince where they could find Flamel. They were sure she could tell them, but they couldn't risk Snape hearing what they were up to.

Harry waited outside in the corridor to see if the other three had found anything, but he wasn't very hopeful. They had been looking for two weeks, after all, but as they only had odd moments between lessons it wasn't surprising they'd found nothing. What they really needed was a nice long search without Madam Pince breathing down their necks.

Five minutes later, Hermione, Ron, and Draco joined him, shaking their heads. They went off to lunch.

“You two will keep looking while we're away, won't you?” said Hermione to Harry and Ron. “And send an owl if you find anything.”

“And you could ask your parents if they know who Flamel is,” said Ron, addressing Draco.

Draco raised an eyebrow. “I'm not sure that's a good idea.”

“Oh. Right. Darn. Well, Hermione, you could ask yours. It'd be safe to ask them.”

“Very safe, as they're both dentists,” said Hermione.

 

Once the holidays had started, Ron and Harry were having too good a time to think much about Flamel. The Hufflepuff dormitory was empty and the common room was nearly deserted, so Harry spent a great deal of time there, getting the good armchairs by the fire. They sat by the hour eating anything they could spear on a toasting fork—bread, English muffins, marshmallows—and plotting ways of getting Zabini expelled, which were fun to talk about even if they wouldn't work.

Ron had also started teaching Harry wizard chess. This was exactly like Muggle chess except that the figures were alive, which made it a lot like directing troops in battle. Ron's set was very old and battered. Like everything else he owned, it had once belonged to someone else in his family—in this case, his grandfather. However, old chessmen weren't a drawback at all. Ron knew them so well he never hd any trouble getting them to do what he wanted.

Harry played with chessmen Draco had lent him a few weeks before, and they didn't trust him at all. He wasn't a very good player yet and they kept shouting different bits of advice at him, which was confusing. “Don't send me there, can't you see his knight? Send _him_ , we can afford to lose _him_.”

On Christmas Eve, Harry went to bed on a cot in the Hufflepuff dormitory looking forward to the next day for the food and the fun, but not expecting any presents at all. When he woke early in the morning, however, the first thing he saw was a small pile of packages at the foot of the cot.

“Merry Christmas,” said Ron sleepily as Harry scrambled out of bed and pulled on his bathrobe.

“You, too,” said Harry. “Will you look at this? I've got some presents!”

“What did you expect, turnips?” said Ron, turning to his own pile which was a lot bigger than Harry's.

Harry picked up the top parcel. It was wrapped in thick brown paper and scrawled across it was _To Harry, from Hagrid_. Inside was a roughly cut wooden flute. Hagrid had obviously whittled it himself. Harry blew it—it sounded a bit like an owl.

A second, very small parcel contained a note.

 _We received your message and enclose your Christmas present. From Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia._ Taped to the note was a fifty-pence piece.

“That's friendly,” said Harry.

Ron was fascinated by the fifty pence.

“ _Weird!”_ he said. “What a shape! This is _money_?”

“You can keep it,” said Harry, laughing at how pleased Ron was. “Hagrid and my aunt and uncle—so who sent these?”

“I think I know who that one's from,” said Ron, turning a bit pink and pointing to a very lumpy parcel. “My mum. I told her you didn't expect any presents and—oh, no,” he groaned, “she's made you a Weasley sweater.”

Harry had torn open the parcel to find a thick, hand-knitted sweater in emerald green and a large box of homemade fudge.

“Every year she makes us a sweater,” said Ron, unwrapping his own, “and mine's _always_ maroon.”

“That's really nice of her,” said Harry, trying the fudge, which was very tasty.

His next present also contained candy—a large box of Chocolate Frogs from Hermione.

Yet another present, this one from Draco, contained a miniature model of a Quidditch field, complete with fourteen players and all four balls. All of the figures flew over the field, and a Bludger even unseated one of the Chasers as he watched.

This only left one parcel. Harry picked it up and felt it. It was very light. He unwrapped it.

Something fluid and silvery gray went slithering to the floor where it lay in gleaming folds. Ron gasped.

“I've heard of those,” he said in a hushed voice, dropping the box of Every Flavor Beans he'd gotten from Hermione onto a now-unrolled poster for the Chudley Cannons (a gift from Draco). “If that's what I think it is—they're really rare, and _really_ valuable.”

“What is it?”

Harry picked the shining, silvery cloth off the floor. It was strange to touch, like water woven into material.

“It's an Invisibility Cloak,” said Ron, a look of awe on his face. “I'm sure it is—try it on.”

Harry threw the Cloak around his shoulders and Ron gave a yell.

“It _is_! Look down!”

Harry looked down at his feet, but they were gone. He dashed to the mirror. Sure enough, his reflection looked back at him, just his head suspended in midair, his body completely invisible. He pulled the Cloak over his head and his reflection vanished completely.

“There's a note!” said Ron suddenly. “A note fell out of it!”

Harry pulled off the Cloak and seized the letter. Written in narrow, loopy writing he had never seen before were the following words:

 

_Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you._

_Use it well._

_A Very Merry Christmas to you_

 

There was no signature. Harry stared at the note. Ron was admiring the Cloak.

“I'd give _anything_ for one of these,” he said. “ _Anything_. What's the matter?”

“Nothing,” said Harry. He felt very strange. Who had sent the Cloak? Had it really once belonged to his father?

Before he could say or think anything else, the dormitory door was flung open, and to both his and Ron's great surprise, Fred and George bounded in. How they'd managed to sneak into the Hufflepuff dormitories was beyond him, but they were the Ravenclaws, after all.

Harry stuffed the Cloak quickly out of sight. He didn't feel like sharing it with anyone else yet.

“Merry Christmas!”

“Hey, look—Harry's got a Weasley sweater, too!”

Fred and George were wearing blue sweaters, one with a large yellow F on it, the other a G.

“Harry's is better than ours, though,” said Fred, holding up Harry's sweater. “She obviously makes more of an effort if you're not family.”

“Why aren't you wearing yours, Ron?” George demanded, “Come on, get it on, they're lovely and warm.”

“I hate maroon,” Ron moaned halfheartedly as he pulled it over his head.

“You haven't got a letter on yours,” George observed. “I suppose she thinks you don't forget your name. But we're not stupid—we know we're called Gred and Forge.”

“What's all this noise? Fred, George, you're not supposed to be in here.”

Percy Weasley stuck his head through the door, looking disapproving. He, too, carried a lumpy sweater over his arm, which Fred seized.

“You're one to talk,” George said. “And Harry's in here, too—I don't see you telling _him_ off.”

“Harry is a first—”

“P for prefect!” Fred said, interrupting him. “Get it on, Percy, we're all wearing ours, even Harry got one.”

“I—don't—want—” said Percy thickly, as the twins forced the sweater over his head, knocking his glasses askew.

“And you're not sitting with the Slytherins today, either,” said George. “Christmas is a time for family.”

They frog-marched Percy from the room, his arms pinned to his sides by his sweater.

 

Harry had never in all his life had such a Christmas dinner. A hundred fat, roast turkeys; mountains of roast and boiled potatoes; platters of chipolatas, tureens of buttered peas; silver boats of thick, rich gravy and cranberry sauce—and stacks of wizard crackers every few feet along the table. These fantastic party favors were nothing like the feeble Muggle ones the Dursleys usually bought, with their little plastic toys and their flimsy paper hats inside. Harry pulled a wizard cracker with Fred and it didn't just bang, it went off with a blast like a cannon and engulfed them all in a cloud of blue smoke, while from the inside exploded a rear admiral's hat and several live, white mice. Up at the High Table, Dumbledore had swapped his pointed wizard's hat for a flowered bonnet, and was chuckling merrily at a joke Professor Flitwick had just read him.

Flaming Christmas puddings followed the turkey. Percy nearly broke his teeth on a silver Sickle embedded in his slice. Harry watched Hagrid getting redder and redder in the face as he called for more wine, finally kissing Professor McGonagall on the cheek, who, to Harry's amazement, giggled and blushed, her top hat lopsided.

When Harry finally left the table, he was laden down with a stack of things out of the crackers, including a pack of non-explodable, luminous balloons, a Grow-Your-Own-Warts kit, and his own new wizard chess set. The white mice had disappeared and Harry had a nasty feeling they were going to end up as Mrs. Norris's Christmas dinner.

Harry and the Weasleys spent a happy afternoon having a furious snowball fight on the grounds. Then, cold, wet, and gasping for breath, they returned to the fire in the Hufflepuff common room, where Harry broke in his new chess set by losing spectacularly to Ron. He suspected he wouldn't have lost so badly if Percy hadn't tried to help him so much.

After a meal of turkey sandwiches, crumpets, trifle, and Christmas cake, everyone felt too full and sleepy to do much before bed except sit and watch Percy chase Fred and George all over the Hufflepuff common room because they'd stolen his prefect badge.

It had been Harry's best Christmas day ever.

 

The rest of the holidays Harry spent with Ron in the Hufflepuff dormitory and common room (with Fred and George occasionally breaking in and Percy following to tell them off). The few Hufflepuffs that remained didn't seem to mind, but Harry was paranoid about losing the Invisibility Cloak or waking up to discover it stolen; he kept it locked in his trunk in the Slytherin dormitory until the end of the holidays, checking on it periodically. It never occurred to him to use it—not yet. _Use it well_ , the note had said, and so far nothing had warranted its use, and although he wasn't sure what _would_ render it necessary, he figured he'd know it when it happened. He only took it out again the night everyone came back.

“Draco, look,” he whispered, beckoning him over. He opened his trunk and pulled out the Cloak, letting its light, airy material flow over his hands.

Draco's reaction was incredibly similar to Ron's. “Is—is that what I think it is?” he asked, his eyes going wide in amazement.

Harry just grinned in response and threw the Cloak over his head. Draco's expression was giddy with delight.

“No way! How did you get your hands on one of those?”

“It belonged to my father apparently.” Harry imagined it was quite odd for Draco to hear his voice with no discernible source. “He gave it to someone before he died, and they returned it to me over Christmas. It was one of my presents.”

“But who gave it to you?”

“Search me. There was no signature on the note.”

“Wow,” said Draco. He looked awed. “Have you used it yet? Like actually gone out to use it?”

“No,” said Harry, but an idea was forming in his head. “But I think I know what I'm going to do.”

He went to bed that night with his mind racing. This Cloak had really been his father's, his only link to either of his parents. He had to use it, now.

He waited until the dormitory was filled with snores before he slipped the Cloak out from under his blankets. Quickly, before anyone could wake up and discover him, he wrapped it around himself. Looking down at his legs, he saw only moonlight and shadows. It was a very funny feeling.

_Use it well._

Suddenly, Harry felt wide-awake. The whole of Hogwarts was open to him in this Cloak. Excitement flooded through him as he stood there in the dark and silence. He could go anywhere in this, anywhere, and Filch would never know.

He crept out of the dormitory, through the common room, and out into the corridor.

There was only one place right now he could think of to go: the Restricted Section in the library. He'd be able to read as long as he liked, as long as it took to find out who Flamel was. He set off, drawing the Invisibility Cloak tight around him as he walked.

The library was pitch-black and very eerie. Harry lit a lamp to see his way along the rows of books. The lamp looked as if it were floating along in midair, and even though Harry could feel his arm supporting it, the sight gave him the creeps.

The Restricted Section was right at the back of the library. Stepping carefully over the rope that separated these books from the rest of the library, he held up his lamp to read the titles.

They didn't tell him much. Their peeling, faded gold letters spelled words in languages Harry couldn't understand. Some had no title at all. One book had a dark stain on it that looked horribly like blood. The hairs on the back of Harry's neck prickled. Maybe he was imagining it, maybe not, but he thought a faint whispering was coming from the books, as though they knew someone was there who shouldn't be.

He had to start somewhere. Setting the lamp down carefully on the floor, he looked along the bottom shelf for an interesting-looking book. A large black and silver volume caught his eye. He pulled it out with difficulty, because it was very heavy, and balancing it on his knee, let it fall open.

A piercing, bloodcurdling shriek split the silence—the book was screaming! Harry snapped it shut, but the shriek went on and on, one high, unbroken, earsplitting note. He stumbled backward and knocked over his lamp, which went out at once. Panicking, he heard footsteps coming from the corridor outside—stuffing the shrieking book back on the shelf, he ran for it. He passed Filch in the doorway; Filch's pale, wide eyes looked straight through him, and Harry slipped under Filch's outstretched arm and streaked off up the corridor, the book's shrieks still ringing in his ears.

He came to a sudden halt in front of a tall suit of armor. He had been so busy getting away from the library, he hadn't paid attention to where he was going. Perhaps because it was dark, he didn't recognize where he was at all. There was a suit of armor near the kitchens, he knew, but he must have been five floors above there.

“You asked me to come directly to you, Professor, if anyone was wandering around the Restricted Section at night, and somebody's been in the library—Restricted Section.”

Harry felt the blood drain out of his face. Wherever he was, Filch must have known a shortcut, because his soft, greasy voice was getting nearer, and to his horror, it was Snape who replied, “The Restricted Section? Well, they can't be far, we'll catch them.”

Harry stood rooted to the spot as Filch and Snape came around the corner ahead. They couldn't see him, of course, but it was a narrow corridor and if they came much nearer they'd knock right into him—the Cloak didn't stop him from being solid.

He backed away as quietly as he could. A door stood ajar to his left. It was his only hope. He squeezed through it, holding his breath, trying not to move it, and to his relief he managed to get inside the room without their noticing anything. They walked straight past, and Harry leaned against the wall, breathing deeply, listening to their footsteps dying away. That had been close, very close. It was a few seconds before he noticed anything about the room he had hidden in.

It looked like an unused classroom. The dark shapes of desks and chairs were were piled against the walls, and there was an upturned wastepaper basket—but propped against the wall facing him was something that didn't look as if it belonged there, something that seemed like someone had just put it there to keep it out of the way.

It was a magnificent mirror, as high as the ceiling, with an ornate gold frame, standing on two clawed feet. There was an inscription carved around the top: _Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi._

His panic fading now that there was no sound of Filch and Snape, Harry moved nearer to the mirror, wanting to look at himself but see no reflection again. He stepped in front of it.

He had to clap his hands to his mouth to stop himself from screaming. He whirled around. His heart was pounding frantically, far more furiously than when the book had screamed—for he had seen not only himself in the mirror, but a whole crowd of people standing right behind him.

But the room was empty. Breathing very fast, he turned slowly back to the mirror.

There he was, reflected in it, pale and scared-looking, and there, reflected behind him, were at least ten others. Harry looked over his shoulder—but still, no one was there. Or were they all invisible, too? Was he in fact in a room full of invisible people and this mirror's trick was that it reflected them, invisible or not?

He looked in the mirror again. A woman standing right behind his reflection was smiling at him and waving. He reached out a hand and felt the air behind him. If she was really there, he'd touch her, their reflections were so close together, but he felt only air—she and the others existed only in the mirror.

She was a very pretty woman. She had dark red hair and her eyes— _her eyes are just like mine_ , Harry thought, edging a bit closer to the glass. Bright green—exactly the same shape, but then he noticed that she was crying; smiling, but crying at the same time. The tall, thin, black-haired man standing next to her put his arm around her. He wore glasses, his skin was dark, and his hair was very untidy. It stuck up in the back, just as Harry's did.

Harry was so close to the mirror now that his nose was nearly touching that of his reflection.

“Mum?” he whispered. “Dad?”

They just looked at him, smiling. And slowly, Harry looked into the faces of the other people in the mirror, and saw other pairs of green eyes like his, other noses like his, even a little old man who looked as though he had Harry's knobbly knees—Harry was looking at his family, his _true_ family, for the first time in his life.

The Potters smiled and waved at Harry and he stared hungrily back at them, his hands pressed flat against the glass as though he were hoping to fall right through it and reach them. He had a powerful kind of ache inside him, half joy, half terrible sadness.

How long he stood there, he didn't know. The reflections did not fade and he looked and looked until a distant noise brought him back to his senses. He couldn't stay here, he had to find his way back to bed. He tore his eyes away from his mother's face, whispered, “I'll come back,” and hurried from the room.

 

“You could have woken me up,” said Draco, crossly.

“You can come tonight, I'm going back, I want to show you the mirror.”

“I'd like to see your mother and father,” said Draco with a curious thoughtfulness.

“And I want to see all your family—have you got any brothers or sisters?”

“No. Sometimes I wish I had.”

“Well, I'd at least like to see your parents.”

“No you wouldn't. Well, maybe my mother, but not my father. Anyway, maybe it only shows dead people. Shame about not finding Flamel, though. Have some bacon or something, why aren't you eating anything?”

Harry couldn't eat. He had seen his parents and would be seeing them again tonight. He had almost forgotten about Flamel. It didn't seem very important anymore. Who cared about what the three-headed dog was guarding? What did it matter if Snape stole it, really?

“Are you alright?” said Draco. “You look odd.”

 

What Harry feared most was that he might not be able to find the mirror room again. With Draco covered in the Cloak, too, they had to walk much more slowly the next night. They tried retracing Harry's route from the library, wandering around the dark passageways for nearly an hour.

“I'm freezing,” said Draco. “Let's forget it and go back.”

“ _No!_ ” Harry hissed. “I know it's here somewhere.”

They passed the ghost of a tall witch gliding in the opposite direction, but saw no one else. Just as Draco started moaning that his feet were dead with cold, Harry spotted the suit of armor.

“It's here—just here—yes!”

They pushed the door open. Harry dropped the Cloak from around his shoulders and ran to the mirror.

There they were. His mother and father beamed at the sight of him.

“See?” Harry whispered.

“I can't see anything.”

“Look! Look at them all... there are loads of them...”

“I can only see you.”

“Look in it properly, go on, stand where I am.”

Harry stepped aside, but with Draco in front of the mirror, he couldn't see his family anymore, just Draco in his forest-green pajamas.

Draco, though, was staring transfixed at his image.

“Look at me!” he said.

“Can you see your family standing around you?”

“My parents, yeah—but I'm different—I look older—and there's others, not my family—there's you and Hermione and Ron, and we're all older!”

“ _What?”_

“I'm—my parents—they're smiling—they've got their arms around me—and my father—he—I look happy, like really happy!”

Draco tore his eyes away from this splendid sight to look excitedly at Harry.

“Do you think this mirror shows the future?”

“How can it? All my family are dead—let me have another look—”

“You had it to yourself all last night, give me a bit more time.”

“You see your parents all the time, and me and Ron and Hermione, what's interesting about that? I want to see my parents.”

“Don't push me—”

A sudden noise outside in the corridor put an end to their discussion. They hadn't realized how loudly they had been talking.

“Quick!”

Draco threw the Cloak back over them as the luminous eyes of Mrs. Norris came round the door. Draco and Harry stood quite still, both thinking the same thing—did the Cloak work on cats? After what seemed like an age, she turned and left.

“This isn't safe—she might have gone for Filch, I bet she heard us. Come on.”

And Draco pulled Harry out of the room.

 

The snow still hadn't melted the next morning.

“Want to play chess, Harry?” said Draco.

“No.”

“Why don't we get Ron and Hermione and go down and visit Hagrid?”

“No... you go...”

“I know what you're thinking about, Harry, that mirror. Don't go back tonight.”

“Why not?”

“I dunno, I've just got a bad feeling about it—and anyway, you've had too many close shaves already. Filch, Snape, and Mrs. Norris are wandering around. So what if they can't see you? What if they walk into you? What if you knock something over?”

“You sound like Hermione.”

“I'm serious, Harry, you shouldn't go.”

But Harry only had one thought in his head, which was to get back in front of the mirror, and Draco wasn't going to stop him.

 

That third night he found his way much more quickly than before. He was walking so fast he knew he was making more noise than was wise, but he didn't meet anyone.

And there were his mother and father smiling at him again, and one of his grandfathers nodding happily. Harry sank down to sit on the floor in front of the mirror. There was nothing to stop him from staying here all night with his family. Nothing at all.

Except—

“So—back again, Harry?”

Harry felt as though his insides had turned to ice. He looked behind him. Sitting on one of the desks by the wall was none other than Albus Dumbledore. Harry must have walked straight past him, so desperate to get to the mirror that he hadn't noticed him.

“I—I didn't see you, sir.”

“Strange how nearsighted being invisible can make you,” said Dumbledore, and Harry was relieved to see that he was smiling.

“So,” said Dumbledore, slipping off the desk to sit on the floor with Harry, “you, like hundreds before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised.”

“I didn't know it was called that, sir.”

“But I expect you've realized by now what it does?”

“It—well—it shows me my family—”

“And it shows your friend Draco himself happy, surrounded by his friends and accepted by his parents.”

“How did you know—”

“I don't need a Cloak to become invisible,” said Dumbledore gently. “Now, can you think what the Mirror of Erised shows us all?”

Harry shook his head.

“Let me explain. The happiest person on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, they would look into it and see themselves exactly as they are. Does that help?”

Harry thought. Then he said slowly, “It shows us what we want... whatever we want.”

“Yes and no,” said Dumbledore quietly. “It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. Draco Malfoy, who must constantly battle against the limitations imposed on him by his parents, sees himself finally having earned their respect and acceptance as he is. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. People have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible.

“The Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Harry, and I ask you not to go looking for it again. If you ever _do_ run across it, you will now be prepared. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that. Now, why don't you put that admirable Cloak back on and get off to bed?”

Harry stood up.

“Sir—Professor Dumbledore? Can I ask you something?”

“Obviously, you've just done so,” Dumbledore said with a smile. “You may ask me one more thing, however.”

“What do you see when you look in the mirror?”

“I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks.”

Harry stared.

“One can never have enough socks,” said Dumbledore. “Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.”

It was only when he was back in bed that it struck Harry that Dumbledore might not have been quite truthful. But then, he thought, as he rolled over onto his side, it had been quite a personal question.

 


	8. VIII

Dumbledore had convinced Harry not to go looking for the Mirror of Erised again, and for the next several weeks the Invisibility Cloak stayed folded at the bottom of his trunk. Harry wished he could forget what he'd seen in the mirror as easily, but he couldn't. He started having nightmares. Over and over again he dreamed about his parents disappearing in a flash of green light, while a high voice cackled with laughter.

“You see, Dumbledore was right, that mirror could drive you mad,” said Draco, when Harry told him about the dreams.

Harry told Hermione and Ron about the mirror and the dreams, too, and she took a different view of things. She was torn between horror at the idea of Harry being out of bed, roaming the school three nights in a row (“If Filch had caught you!”), and disappointment that he hadn't at least found out who Nicolas Flamel was.

They had almost given up hope of ever finding Flamel in a library book, even though Harry was still sure he'd read the name somewhere. Once classes were back in full swing, they were back to skimming through books for ten minutes during their breaks. Harry had even less time than the other three, because Quidditch practice had started again.

Flint was working the team harder than ever. Even the endless rain that had replaced the snow couldn't dampen his spirits. Cassie and Julian complained that Flint was becoming a fanatic, but Harry was on Flint's side. If they won their next match, the one against Ravenclaw, they would finally take first place in the House Championship for the first time in seven years. Quite apart from wanting to win, Harry found that he had fewer nightmares when he was tired out after training.

Then, during one particularly wet and muddy practice session, Flint gave the team a bit of news that no one knew how to take. He'd just gotten very angry with Adrian and Miles, who kept dive-bombing each other and pretending to fall off their brooms.

“Will you stop messing around?” he yelled. “That's exactly the sort of thing that'll lose us the match! McGonagall's refereeing this time, and she'll be looking for _any_ excuse to knock points off Slytherin!”

Adrian Pucey really did fall off his broom at these words.

“Wait, did you say _McGonagall's_ refereeing?” he spluttered through a mouthful of mud. “When's she ever refereed a Quidditch match? She might not be fair—we could overtake Gryffindor.”

The rest of the team landed next to Adrian to complain, too.

“Hey, I don't like it any more than you do—but I'm hoping she'll be impartial. It's not _my_ fault, either,” added Flint. “We've just got to make sure we play a clean game, so she hasn't got an excuse to pick on us.”

Which was all very well, thought Harry, but if his theory was right about Snape trying to jinx him, he thought she might have another reason for wanting to referee the match...

The rest of the team hung back to talk to one another as usual at the end of practice, but Harry headed straight for the Hufflepuff common room, where he found Draco hovering over Ron and Hermione playing chess. Chess was the only thing Hermione ever lost at, something Harry, Ron, and Draco thought was very good for her.

“Don't talk for a moment,” said Ron when Harry sat down next to him, “I need to concen—” He caught sight of Harry's face. “What's the matter with you? You look terrible.”

Speaking quietly so that no one else would hear, Harry told the other three about McGonagall's sudden desire to be a Quidditch referee. “I think we were right,” he finished. “Snape was trying to jinx me and McGonagall knows it.”

“Don't play,” said Hermione at once.

“Say you're ill,” said Ron.

“Develop a fear of flying,” suggested Draco.

“Pretend to break your leg,” added Hermione.

“ _Really_ break your leg,” said Ron.

“I can't,” said Harry. “There's no reserve Seeker. If I back out, Slytherin can't play at all. Besides, with McGonagall refereeing... well, I should be safe, right?”

“I'm not so sure,” said Ron slowly. “Being surrounded by teachers didn't exactly stop him last time, did it?”

“Right, but now he knows he's being watched. Last time was like an attack of opportunity, wasn't it?” Draco said.

“So maybe you'll be alright. And I bet the other teachers are going to be keeping an eye on each other—after all, there's no student who could lay a jinx like that, not on a broom,” Hermione added.

“Except maybe you,” Draco joked. He pulled a Chocolate Frog out of his robes and handed it to Harry. “Here. Maybe we can figure something else out, too. We're Slytherins—being cunning is in our nature.”

Harry chuckled weakly, unwrapping the frog. His own confidence was returning a little bit with Draco's reassurance, but the more he thought it over, the more likely he thought it was that the teachers would be watching out for Snape now. He would probably be okay.

He stuffed the frog in his mouth and made to hand the card back to Draco. “D'you want this?” he started asking with his mouth full of chocolate. “It's Dumbledore, he's the first one I ever—”

He nearly choked on his chocolate. He turned the card over several times as he fought to swallow, and then spluttered between coughs, “I— _found—_ him! Flamel!” He coughed again, clearing his throat, and said, “I _told_ you I'd read his name somewhere before, I read it on the train coming here—listen to this! 'Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, _and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel_ '!”

Hermione jumped to her feet, looking more excited than Harry had ever seen her. “Stay there!” she said, and she sprinted out of the Hufflepuff common room.

“Oi!” Ron called after her. “Where d'you think she's gone?”

“To get a book, probably,” Harry said. He dropped into the seat Hermione had vacated and moved her knight.

“You know Hermione.” Draco shook his head and focused back on the game.

They'd only made five more moves when Hermione burst back into the Hufflepuff common room, an enormous old book in her arms.

“I never thought to look in here!” she whispered excitedly. “I got this out of the library weeks ago for a bit of light reading.”

“ _Light?_ ” said Ron, but Hermione told him to be quiet until she'd looked something up, and started flicking frantically through the pages, muttering to herself.

At last she found what she was looking for.

“I knew it! I _knew_ it!”

“Are we allowed to speak yet?” said Ron grumpily. Hermione ignored him.

“Nicolas Flamel,” she whispered dramatically, “is the _only known maker of the Sorcerer's Stone_!”

This didn't have quite the effect she'd expected.

“The what?” said Harry, Draco, and Ron.

“Oh, _honestly_ , don't you lot read? Look—read that, there.”

She pushed the book toward them, and they read:

 

_The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Sorcerer's Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal._

_There have been many reports of the Sorcerer's Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight)._

 

“See?” said Hermione, when they had finished. “The dog must be guarding Flamel's Sorcerer's Stone! I bet he asked Dumbledore to keep it safe for him, because they're friends and he knew someone was after it, that's why he wanted the Stone moved out of Gringotts!”

“A stone that makes gold and stops you from ever dying?” said Harry. “No wonder Snape's after it! _Anyone_ would want it.”

“And no wonder we couldn't find Flamel in that _Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry_ ,” added Draco.

“Yeah, he's not exactly recent if he's six hundred and sixty-five, is he?” said Ron.

 

The next morning in Defense Against the Dark Arts, while copying down different ways of treating werewolf bites, Harry and Draco were still discussing what they'd do with a Sorcerer's Stone if they had one. It wasn't until Draco said he'd buy his own Quidditch team that Harry remembered the upcoming match.

“I'm going to play,” he told Draco. “If I don't, everyone will think I'm scared of Gryffindor with McGonagall refereeing. I'll show them... it'll really wipe the smiles off their faces if we win.”

“Just as long as we're not wiping you off the field,” said Draco.

As the match drew nearer, however, Harry became more and more nervous, whatever he told Draco. The rest of the team wasn't too calm, either. The idea of overtaking Gryffindor in the House Championship was wonderful, but would they be able to? No one was quite sure how biased McGonagall was.

 

Harry knew, when they wished him good luck outside the locker rooms the next afternoon, that Draco, Ron, and Hermione were wondering whether they'd ever see him alive again. This wasn't what you'd call comforting. Harry hardly heard a word of Flint's pep talk as he pulled on his Quidditch robes and picked up his Nimbus Two Thousand.

Ron, Hermione, and Draco, meanwhile, had found a place in the stands next to Neville, who couldn't understand why they looked so grim and worried, or why they had all brought their wands to the match. Little did Harry know that they'd been secretly practicing the Leg-Locker Curse. They'd gotten the idea after Neville mentioned to Hermione that Zabini had used it on him once, and they were ready to use it on Snape if he showed any signs of wanting to hurt Harry.

“Now, don't forget, it's _Locomotor Mortis_ ,” Hermione muttered as Draco and Ron slipped their wands up their sleeves.

“We _know_ ,” Ron snapped. “Don't nag.”

Back in the locker room, Flint had taken Harry aside.

“Don't want to pressure you, Potter, but if we ever need an early capture of the Snitch it's now. Finish the game before McGonagall can favor Hufflepuff too much.”

“The whole school's out there!” said Graham Montague, peering out of the door. “Even—blimey—Dumbledore's come to watch!”

Harry's heart did a somersault.

“ _Dumbledore?_ ” he asked, dashing to the door to make sure. Graham was right. There was no mistaking that silver beard.

Harry could have laughed out loud with relief. He was safe. There was simply no way Snape would dare to try to hurt him if Dumbledore was watching.

Perhaps that was why Snape was looking so angry, sitting with the other teachers as the teams marched onto the field, something that Draco noticed, too.

“I've never seen Snape look so mean,” he told Hermione and Ron. “Look—they're off. Ouch!”

Someone had poked Draco in the back of the head. It was Zabini.

“Oh, sorry, Malfoy, didn't see you there.”

Zabini grinned broadly at Crabbe and Goyle.

“Wonder how long Potter's going to stay on his broom this time? Anyone want a bet? What about you, Weasley?”

Ron didn't answer; McGonagall had just awarded Hufflepuff a penalty because Cassie Lightwood accidentally smacked a Hufflepuff player in the nose with her bat. Hermione, who had all her fingers crossed in her lap, was squinting fixedly at Harry, who was circling the game like a hawk, looking for the Snitch.

“Not really sure why you're sitting with a Hufflepuff anyway, Malfoy—or did you forget you're supposed to be a Slytherin? I know your parents sure haven't.” Draco didn't answer—he was very determinedly keeping his mouth shut.

“You know how I think they choose people for Quidditch teams?” said Zabini loudly a few minutes later, as McGonagall awarded Hufflepuff another penalty. “It's people they feel sorry for. See, the Slytherins have Potter, who's got no parents, then there's the Weasleys on Ravenclaw, who've got no money—you should play for Gryffindor, Longbottom, you've got no brains.”

Neville went bright red but turned in his seat to face Zabini.

“I'm worth twelve of you, Zabini,” he stammered.

Zabini, Crabbe, and Goyle howled with laughter, but Ron, still not daring to take his eyes from the game, said, “You tell him, Neville.”

“Longbottom, if brains were gold you'd be poorer than Weasley, and that's saying something.”

Ron's nerves were already stretched to the breaking point with anxiety about Harry.

“I'm warning you, Zabini—one more word—”

“Look!” said Hermione suddenly, “Harry—!”

“What? Where?”

Harry had suddenly gone into a spectacular dive, which drew gasps and cheers from the crowd. Hermione stood up, her crossed fingers in her mouth, as Harry streaked toward the ground like a bullet.

“You're in luck, Weasley, Potter's obviously spotted some money on the ground!”

Ron snapped. Before Zabini knew what was happening, Ron was on top of him, wrestling him to the ground, and Draco was just a half a second behind him. Neville hesitated, then clambered over the back of his seat to help.

“Come on, Harry!” Hermione screamed, leaping onto her seat to watch as Harry sped straight at McGonagall—Hermione didn't even notice Zabini and Ron rolling around under her seat, or the scuffles and yelps coming from the whirl of fists that was Neville, Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle.

Up in the air, McGonagall turned on her broomstick just in time to see something emerald streak past her, missing her by inches—the next second, Harry had pulled out of the dive, his arm raised in triumph, the Snitch clasped in his hand.

The stands erupted; it had to be a record, no one could ever remember the Snitch being caught so quickly.

“Ron! Draco! Where are you? The game's over! Harry's won!” shouted Hermione, dancing up and down on her seat and hugging Padma Patil in the row in front.

Harry jumped off his broom, a foot from the ground. He couldn't believe it—he'd done it. The game was over; it had barely lasted five minutes. As Slytherins came spilling out onto the field, he saw Snape with them, white-faced and tight-lipped—then Harry felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up into Dumbledore's smiling face.

“Well done,” said Dumbledore quietly, so that only Harry could hear. “Nice to see you haven't been brooding about that mirror... been keeping busy... excellent...”

 

Harry left the locker room alone some time later, to take his Nimbus Two Thousand back to the broomshed. He couldn't ever remember feeling happier. He'd really done something to be proud of now—no one could say he was just a famous name anymore. The evening air had never smelled so sweet. He walked over the damp grass, reliving the last hour in his head, which was a happy blur: Slytherins running to lift him onto their shoulders; Draco, Ron, and Hermione in the distance, jumping up and down (Harry was glad that Ron could be happy for him even though it was his own House that had been beaten); Ron and Draco cheering through a heavy nosebleed and a split lip, respectively.

Harry had reached the shed. He leaned against the wooden door and looked up at Hogwarts, with its windows glowing red in the setting sun. Slytherin in the lead. He'd done it, and Snape hadn't tried to jinx him...

And speaking of Snape...

A hooded figure came swiftly down the front steps of the castle. Clearly not wanting to be seen, it walked as fast as possible toward the forbidden forest. Harry's victory faded from his mind as he watched. He recognized the figure's prowling walk. Snape, sneaking into the forest while everyone else was at dinner—what was going on?

Harry jumped back on his Nimbus Two Thousand and took off. Gliding silently over the castle, he saw Snape enter the forest at a run. He followed.

The trees were so thick he couldn't see where Snape had gone. He flew in circles, lower and lower, brushing the top branches of trees until he heard voices. He glided toward them and landed noiselessly in a towering beech tree.

He climbed carefully along one of the branches, holding tight to his broomstick, trying to see through the leaves.

Below, in a shadowy clearing, stood Snape, but he wasn't alone. Quirrell was there, too. Harry couldn't make out the look on his face, but he was stuttering worse than ever. Harry strained to catch what they were saying.

“...d-don't know why you wanted t-t-to m-meet here of all p-places, Severus...”

“Oh, I thought we'd keep this private,” said Snape, his voice icy. “Students aren't supposed to know about the Sorcerer's Stone, after all.”

Harry leaned forward. Quirrell was mumbling something. Snape interrupted him.

“Have you found out how to get past that beast of Hagrid's yet?”

“B-b-but Severus, I—”

“You don't want me as your enemy, Quirrell,” said Snape, taking a step toward him.

“I-I don't know what you—”

“You know perfectly well what I mean.”

An owl hooted loudly, and Harry nearly fell out of the tree. He steadied himself in time to hear Snape say, “—your little bit of hocus-pocus. I'm waiting.”

“B-but I d-d-don't—”

“Very well,” Snape cut in. “We'll have another little chat soon, when you've had time to think about where your loyalties lie.”

He threw his cloak over his head and strode out of the clearing. It was almost dark now, but Harry could see Quirrell, standing quite still as though he was petrified.

 

“Harry, where have you _been_?” Hermione squeaked.

“We won! We won! We won!” shouted Draco, thumping Harry on the back. “And Ron gave Zabini a black eye, and me and Neville tried to take on Crabbe and Goyle—and, well, he's still out cold but Madam Pomfrey says he'll be alright—talk about showing that lot—everyone's waiting for you in the common room, we're having a party—Julian Avery and Cassie Lightwood stole some cakes and stuff from the kitchens.”

“Never mind that now,” said Harry, “where's Ron? Let's find an empty room, wait 'til you hear this...”

He made sure Peeves wasn't inside before shutting the door behind them, then told them what he'd seen and heard.

“So we were right, it _is_ the Sorcerer's Stone, and Snape's trying to force Quirrell to help him get it. He asked if he knew how to get past Fluffy—and he said something about Quirrell's 'hocus-pocus'—I reckon there are other things guarding the Stone apart from Fluffy, loads of enchantments, probably, and Quirrell would have done some anti-Dark Arts spell that Snape needs to break through—”

“So you mean the Stone's only safe as long as Quirrell stands up to Snape?” said Hermione in alarm.

“It'll be gone by next Tuesday,” said Ron.

 


	9. IX

Quirrell, however, must have been braver than they'd thought. In the weeks that followed he did seem to be getting paler and thinner, but it didn't look as though he'd cracked yet.

Every time they passed the third-floor corridor, Harry and Draco would press their ears to the door to check that Fluffy was still growling inside. Snape was sweeping about in his usual bad temper, which surely meant that the Stone was still safe. Whenever Harry passed Quirrell these days he gave him an encouraging sort of smile, and Ron had started telling off people for laughing at Quirrell's stutter.

Hermione, however, had more on her mind than the Sorcerer's Stone. She had started drawing up study schedules and color-coding all her notes. Harry, Draco, and Ron wouldn't have minded, but she kept nagging them to do the same. Despite them not being in the same House as her, they were soon sick of hearing about it.

“Hermione, exams are ages away.”

“Ten weeks,” Hermione snapped. “That's not ages, that's like a second to Nicolas Flamel.”

“But we're not six hundred years old,” Ron reminded her.

“Anyway, what are you studying for, you already know it all,” Draco pointed out.

“What am I studying for? Are you crazy? You realize we need to pass these exams to get into second year? They're very important, I should have started studying a month ago, I don't know what's gotten into me...”

Unfortunately, the teachers seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Hermione. They piled so much homework on them that the Easter holidays weren't nearly as much fun as the Christmas ones. It was hard to relax with Hermione next to you reciting the twelve uses of dragon's blood or practicing wand movements. Moaning and yawning, Harry, Draco, and Ron spent most of their free time in the library with her, trying to get through all their extra work.

“I'll never remember this,” Ron burst out one afternoon, throwing down his quill and looking longingly out of the library window. It was the first really fine day they'd had in months. The sky was a clear, forget-me-not blue, and there was a feeling in the air of summer coming.

Harry, who was looking up “Dittany” in _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ , didn't look up until he heard Draco say, “Hagrid! What are you doing in the library?”

Hagrid shuffled into view, hiding something behind his back. He looked very out of place in his moleskin overcoat.

“Jus' lookin',” he said in a shifty voice that got their attention at once. “An' what're you lot up ter?” He suddenly looked suspicious. “Yer still not lookin' fer Nicolas Flamel, are yeh?”

“Oh, we found out who he is ages ago,” said Ron impressively. “ _And_ we know what that dog's guarding, it's a Sorcerer's St—”

“ _Shhhh!_ ” Hagrid looked around quickly to see if anyone was listening. “Don' go shoutin' about it, what's the matter with yeh?”

“There are a few things we wanted to ask you, as a matter of fact,” said Harry, “about what's guarding the Stone apart from Fluffy—”

“SHHHH!” said Hagrid again. “Listen—come an' see me later, I'm not promisin' I'll tell yeh anythin', mind, but don' go rabbitin' about it in here, students aren' s'pposed ter know. They'll think I've told yeh—”

“See you later then,” said Harry.

Hagrid shuffled off.

“What was he hiding behind his back?” said Draco thoughtfully.

“Do you think it had anything to do with the Stone?”

“I'm going to see what section he was in,” said Ron, who'd had enough of working. He came back a minute later with a pile of books in his arms and slammed them down on the table.

“ _Dragons!_ ” he whispered. “Hagrid was looking up stuff about dragons! Look at these: _Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland_ ; _From Egg to Inferno, A Dragon Keeper's Guide_.”

“Hagrid's always wanted a dragon, he told me so the first time I ever met him,” said Harry.

“But it's against our laws,” said Draco, a touch of horror in his voice.

“Dragon breeding was outlawed by the Warlocks' Convention of 1709, everyone knows that,” Ron added. “It's hard to stop Muggles from noticing us if we're keeping dragons in the back garden—anyway, you can't tame dragons, it's dangerous. You should see the burns Charlie's got off wild ones in Romania.”

“But there aren't wild dragons in _Britain_?” said Harry.

“Of course there are,” said Ron. “Common Welsh Green and Hebridean Blacks.”

“The Ministry of Magic has a job hushing them up, I can tell you,” Draco said. “Our kind have to keep putting spells on Muggles who've spotted them, to make them forget.”

“So what on earth's Hagrid up to?” said Hermione.

 

When they knocked on the door of the gamekeeper's hut an hour later, they were surprised to see that all of the curtains were closed. Hagrid called “Who is it?” before he let them in, and then shut the door quickly behind them.

It was stifling hot inside. Even though it was such a warm day, there was a blazing fire in the grate. Hagrid made them tea and offered them stoat sandwiches, which they refused.

“So—yeh wanted to ask me somethin'?”

“Yes,” said Harry. There was no point beating around the bush. “We were wondering if you could tell us what's guarding the Sorcerer's Stone apart from Fluffy.”

Hagrid frowned at him.

“Of course I can't,” he said. “Number one, I don' know meself. Number two, yeh know too much already, so I wouldn' tell yeh if I could. That Stone's here fer a good reason. It was almost stolen outta Gringotts—I s'ppose yeh've worked that out an' all? Beats me how yeh even know abou' Fluffy.”

“Oh, come on, Hagrid, you might not want to tell us, but you _do_ know, you know everything that goes on round here,” said Hermione in a warm, flattering voice. Hagrid's beard twitched and they could tell he was smiling. “We only wondered who had _done_ the guarding, really,” she went on. “We wondered who Dumbledore trusted enough to help him, apart from you.”

Hagrid's chest swelled at these last words. Harry, Ron, and Draco beamed at her.

“Well, I don' s'ppose it could hurt ter tell yeh that... let's see... he borrowed Fluffy from me... then some o' the teachers did enchantments... Professor Sprout—Professor Flitwick—Professor McGonagall—” he ticked them off on his fingers, “Professor Quirrell—an' Dumbledore himself did somethin', o' course. Hang on, I've forgotten someone. Oh, yeah, Professor Snape.”

“ _Snape?_ ”

“Yeah—yer still not on abou' that, are yeh? Look, Snape helped _protect_ the Stone, he's not abou' ter steal it.”

Harry knew the others were thinking the same as he was. If Snape had been in on protecting the Stone, it must have been easy to find out how the other teachers had guarded it. He probably knew everything—except, it seemed, Quirrell's spell and how to get past Fluffy.

“You're the only one who knows how to get past Fluffy, aren't you, Hagrid?” said Harry anxiously. “And you wouldn't tell anyone, would you? Not even one of the teachers?”

“Not a soul knows except men an' Dumbledore,” said Hagrid proudly.

“Well, that's something,” Harry muttered to the others. “Hagrid, can we have a window open? I'm boiling.”

“Can't, Harry, sorry,” said Hagrid. Harry noticed him glance at the fire. Harry looked at it, too.

“Hagrid—what's _that_?”

But he already knew what it was. In the very heart of the fire, underneath the kettle, was a huge, black egg.

“Ah,” said Hagrid, fiddling nervously with his beard, “that's—er...”

“Where did you get it, Hagrid?” said Ron, crouching over the fire to get a closer look at the egg.

“It must've cost you a fortune,” Draco added, leaning over Ron's shoulder.

“Won it,” said Hagrid. “Las' night. I was down in the village havin' a few drinks an' got into a game o' cards with a stranger. Think he was quite glad ter get rid of it, ter be honest.”

“But what are you going to do with it when it's hatched?” said Hermione.

“Well, I've bin doin' some readin',” said Hagrid, pulling a large book from under his pillow. “Got this outta the library— _Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit—_ it's a bit outta date, o' course, but it's all in here. Keep the egg in the fire, 'cause their mothers breathe on 'em, see, an' when it hatches, feed it on a bucket o' brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour. An' see here—how ter recognize diff'rent eggs—what I got there's a Norwegian Ridgeback. They're rare, them.”

He looked very pleased with himself, but Hermione didn't.

“Hagrid, you live in a _wooden house_ ,” she said.

But Hagrid wasn't listening. He was humming merrily as he stoked the fire.

 

So now they had something else to worry about: what might happen to Hagrid if anyone found out he was hiding an illegal dragon in his hut.

“Wonder what it's like to have a peaceful life,” Ron sighed, as evening after evening they struggled through all the extra homework they were getting. Hermione had now started making study schedules for the three of them, too. It was driving them nuts.

Then, one breakfast time, Hedwig brought Harry another note from Hagrid. He had written only two words: _It's hatching._

After Harry had shown Draco, he took the note to show Ron and Hermione as well. Ron wanted to skip Herbology and go straight down to the hut. Hermione wouldn't hear of it.

“Hermione, how many times in our lives are we going to see a dragon hatching?”

“We've got lessons, we'll get into trouble, and that's nothing to what Hagrid's going to be in when someone finds out what he's doing—”

“Shut up!” Draco hissed.

Zabini was only a few feet away, like he'd been following Harry and Draco, and he had stopped dead to listen. How much had he heard? Harry didn't like the look on Zabini's face at all.

Ron and Hermione argued for another few minutes, and in the end, Hermione agreed that they should all wait to run down to Hagrid's during morning break. When the bell sounded from the castle at the end of their lessons, the four of them dropped all their work at once and hurried through the grounds to the edge of the forest. Hagrid greeted them, looking flushed and excited.

“It's nearly out.” He ushered them inside.

The egg was lying on the table. There were deep cracks in it. Something was moving inside; a funny clicking noise was coming from it.

They all drew up their chairs to the table and watched with bated breath.

All at once there was a scraping noise and the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped onto the table. It wasn't exactly pretty; Harry thought it looked like a crumpled, black umbrella. Its spiny wings were huge compared to its skinny jet body, it had a long snout with wide nostrils, the stubs of horns, and bulging, orange eyes.

It sneezed. A couple of sparks flew out of its snout.

“Isn't he _beautiful_?” Hagrid murmured. He reached out a hand to stroke the dragon's head. It snapped at his fingers, showing pointed fangs.

“Bless him, look, he knows his mummy!” said Hagrid.

“Hagrid,” said Hermione, “how fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow, exactly?”

Hagrid was about to answer when the color suddenly drained from his face—he leapt to his feet and ran to the window.

“What's the matter?”

“Someone was lookin' through the gap in the curtains—it's a kid—he's runnin' back up ter the school.”

Harry bolted to the door and looked out. Even at a distance there was no mistaking him.

Blaise Zabini had seen the dragon.

 

Something about the smile lurking on Zabini's face during the next week made Harry, Draco, Ron, and Hermione very nervous. They spent most of their free time in Hagrid's darkened hut, trying to reason with him.

“Just let him go,” Harry urged. “Set him free.”

“I can't,” said Hagrid. “He's too little. He'd die.”

They looked at the dragon. It had grown three times in length in just a week. Smoke kept furling out of its nostrils. Hagrid hadn't been doing his gamekeeping duties because the dragon was keeping him so busy. There were empty brandy bottles and chicken feathers all over the floor.

“I've decided to call him Norbert,” said Hagrid, looking at the dragon with misty eyes. “He really knows me now, watch. Norbert! Norbert! Where's Mummy?”

“He's lost his marbles,” Harry heard Ron mutter to Draco.

“Hagrid,” said Harry loudly, “give it two weeks and Norbert's going to be as long as your house. Zabini could go to Dumbledore at any moment.”

Hagrid bit his lip.

“I—I know I can't keep him forever, but I can't jus' dump him, I can't.”

Harry suddenly turned to Ron.

“Charlie,” he said.

“You're losing it, too. I'm Ron, remember?”

“No—Charlie—your brother, Charlie. In Romania. Studying dragons. We could send Norbert to him. Charlie can take care of him and then put him back in the wild!”

“Brilliant!” said Ron. “How about it, Hagrid?”

And in the end, Hagrid agreed that they could send an owl to Charlie to ask him.

 

The following week dragged by. Wednesday night found Harry, Hermione, and Draco sitting alone in the library, long after nearly everyone else had gone back to their common rooms. The clock on the wall had just chimed eight when Ron burst into the library, hurriedly stuffing the last of Harry's Invisibility Cloak into his bag. He had been down at Hagrid's hut, helping him feed Norbert, who was now eating dead rats by the crate.

“It bit me!” he said, showing them his hand, which was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief. “I'm not going to be able to hold a quill for a week. I tell you, that dragon's the most horrible animal I've ever met, but the way Hagrid goes on about it, you'd think it was a fluffy little bunny rabbit. When it bit me, he told me off for frightening it. And when I left, he was singing it a lullaby.”

There was a tap on the dark window.

“It's Hedwig!” said Harry, hurrying to let her in. “She'll have Charlie's answer!”

The four of them put their heads together to read the note.

 

Dear Ron,

How are you? Thanks for the letter—I'd be glad to take the Norwegian Ridgeback, but it won't be easy getting him here. I think the best thing will be to send him over with some friends of mine who are coming to visit me next week. Trouble is, they mustn't be seen carrying an illegal dragon.

Could you get the Ridgeback up the tallest tower at midnight on Saturday? They can meet you there and take him away while it's still dark.

Send me an answer as soon as possible.

Love,

Charlie

 

They looked at each other.

“We've got the Invisibility Cloak,” said Harry. “It shouldn't be too difficult—I think the Cloak's big enough to cover two of us and Norbert.”

It was a mark of how bad the last week had been that the other three agreed with him. Anything to get rid of Norbert—and Zabini.

 

There was a hitch. By the next morning, Ron's bitten hand had swollen up to twice its usual size. He didn't know whether it was safe to go to Madam Pomfrey—would she recognize a dragon bite? By the afternoon, though, he had no choice. The cut had turned a nasty shade of green. It looked as if Norbert's fangs were poisonous.

Harry, Draco, and Hermione rushed up to the hospital wing at the end of the day to find Ron in a terrible state in bed.

“It's not just my hand,” he whispered, “although that feels like it's about to fall off. Zabini told Madam Pomfrey he wanted to borrow one of my books so he could come and have a good laugh at me. He kept threatening to tell her what really bit me—I've told her it was a dog, but I don't think she believes me—I shouldn't have hit him at the Quidditch match, that's why he's doing this.”

They tried to calm Ron down.

“It'll all be over at midnight on Saturday,” said Hermione, but this didn't soothe Ron at all. On the contrary, he sat bolt upright, breaking into a sweat.

“Midnight on Saturday!” he said in a hoarse voice. “Oh no—oh no—I've just remembered—Charlie's latter was in that book Zabini took, he's going to know we're getting rid of Norbert.”

They didn't get a chance to answer. Madam Pomfrey came over at that moment and made them leave, saying Ron needed sleep.

 

“It's too late to change the plan now,” Harry told Hermione and Draco. “We haven't got time to send Charlie another owl, and this could be our only chance to get rid of Norbert. We'll have to risk it. And we _have_ got the Invisibility Cloak, Zabini doesn't know about that.”

“I should go with you,” Draco said. “No offense,” he added to Hermione, “but it'll be easier since we're in the same House, and we'll be able to keep an eye on Zabini anyway.”

“Maybe, but I'm already assuming we're getting caught. Harry's aunt and uncle probably won't care, and my parents are Muggles—they won't understand the full impact of it. Yours will, and I don't think they'll be too happy. Besides, you could stall Zabini—try to stall him as long as you can.”

Harry had to admit that Hermione had a point. Draco grudgingly agreed to let the two of them take Norbert.

They found Fang the boarhound sitting outside with a bandaged tail when they went to tell Hagrid, who opened a window to talk to them.

“I won't let you in,” he puffed. “Norbert's at a tricky stage—nothin' I can't handle.”

When they told him about Charlie's letter, his eyes filled with tears, although that might have been because Norbert had just bitten him on the leg.

“Aargh! It's all right, he only got my boot—jus' playin'—he's only a baby, after all.”

The baby banged its tail on the wall, making the windows rattle. Harry, Hermione, and Draco walked back to the castle feeling Saturday couldn't come quickly enough.

 

They would have felt sorry for Hagrid when the time came for him to say goodbye to Norbert if they hadn't been so worried about what they had to do. It was a very dark, cloudy night, and they were a bit late arriving at Hagrid's hut after meeting on the second floor because they had to wait for Peeves to get out of their way in the entrance hall, where he'd been playing tennis against the wall.

Hagrid had Norbert packed and ready in a large crate.

“He's got lots o' rats an' some brandy fer the journey,” said Hagrid in a muffled voice. “An' I've packed his teddy bear in case he gets lonely.”

From inside the crate came ripping noises that sounded to Harry as though the teddy bear was having its head torn off.

“Bye-bye, Norbert!” Hagrid sobbed, as Harry and Hermione covered the crate with the Invisibility Cloak and then stepped underneath it themselves. “Mummy will never forget you!”

How they managed to get the crate back up to the castle, they never knew. Midnight ticked nearer as they heaved Norbert up the marble staircase in the entrance hall and along the dark corridors. Up another staircase, then another—even one of Harry's shortcuts didn't make the work much easier. He just hoped that Draco had managed to stall Zabini. He knew he wouldn't be able to stall him for good—but if he was delayed long enough, they might just get away with this...

“Nearly there!” Harry panted as they reached the corridor beneath the tallest tower.

Then a sudden movement ahead of them made them almost drop the crate. Forgetting that they were already invisible, they shrank into the shadows, staring at the dark outlines of two people grappling with each other ten feet away. A lamp flared.

Professor McGonagall, in a tartan bathrobe and a hair net, had Zabini by the ear.

“Detention!” she shouted. “And twenty points from Slytherin! Wandering around in the middle of the night, how _dare_ you—”

“You don't understand, Professor. Harry Potter's coming—he's got a dragon!”

“What utter rubbish! How dare you tell such lies! Come on—I shall see Professor Snape about you, Zabini!”

The steep spiral staircase up to the top of the tower seemed the easiest thing in the world after that. Not until they'd stepped out into the cold night air did they throw off the Cloak, glad to be able to breathe properly again. Hermione did a sort of jig.

“Zabini's got detention! I could sing!”

“Don't,” Harry advised her.

Chuckling about Zabini, they waited, Norbert thrashing about in his crate. About ten minutes later, four broomsticks came swooping down out of the darkness.

Charlie's friends were a cheery lot. They showed Harry and Hermione the harness they'd rigged up, so they could suspend Norbert between them. They all helped buckle Norbert safely into it and then Harry and Hermione shook hands with the others and thanked them very much.

At last, Norbert was going... going... _gone_.

They slipped back down the spiral staircase, their hearts as light as their hands, now that Norbert was off them. No more dragon—Zabini in detention—what could spoil their happiness?

The answer to that was waiting at the foot of the stairs. As they stepped into the corridor, Filch's face loomed suddenly out of the darkness.

“Well, well, well,” he whispered, “we _are_ in trouble.”

They'd left the Invisibility Cloak on top of the tower.

 


	10. X

Things couldn't have been worse.

Filch took them down to Professor McGonagall's study on the first floor, where they sat and waited without saying a word to each other. Hermione was trembling. Excuses, alibis, and wild cover-up stories chased each other around in Harry's brain, each more feeble than the last. He couldn't see how they were going to get out of trouble this time. They were cornered. How could they have been so stupid as to forget the Cloak? There was no reason on earth that Professor McGonagall would accept for their being out of bed and creeping around the school in the dead of night, let alone being up in the tallest Astronomy Tower, which was out-of-bounds except for classes. Add Norbert and the Invisibility Cloak, and they might as well be packing their bags already.

Had Harry thought that things couldn't have been worse? He was wrong. When Professor McGonagall appeared, she was leading Draco.

The look on Draco's face said quite clearly that he hadn't expected to see Harry and Hermione there, and that he was disappointed—whether with himself, them, or all of them, Harry couldn't say. Fortunately, he had the good sense not to say anything as Professor McGonagall sat him down next to them.

She looked more likely to breathe fire than Norbert as she towered over the three of them.

“I would never have believed it of any of you. Mr. Filch says you two were up in the Astronomy Tower. It's one o'clock in the morning. _Explain yourselves._ ”

It was the first time Hermione had ever failed to answer a teacher's question. She was staring at her slippers, as still as a statue.

“I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on,” said Professor McGonagall. “It doesn't take a genius to work it out. You fed Blaise Zabini some cock-and-bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble. I've already caught him. I just can't imagine what a Ravenclaw is doing, helping out two Slytherins with this stunt. And you, boys—where's your House unity?

“I'm disgusted—four students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before! You, Miss Granger, I thought you had more sense. As for you, Mr. Potter, Mr. Malfoy, I thought your House meant more to you than this. All three of you will receive detention, and fifty points will be taken from your Houses.”

“ _Fifty?_ ” Harry gasped—Slytherin would lose their lead, the lead he'd won in the last Quidditch match.

“Fifty points _each_ ,” said Professor McGonagall, breathing heavily through her long, pointed nose.

“Professor—please—”

“You _can't—_ ”

“Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Potter. Now get back to bed, all of you. I've never been more ashamed of a group of students.”

Fifty points from Ravenclaw put Hermione's House into third place, but Harry, Draco, and Blaise's combined hundred and twenty points lost landed Slytherin squarely in last place. In one night, they'd ruined any chance Slytherin had for the House Cup. Harry felt as though the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. How could they ever make up for this?

“What happened?” he asked quietly once he and Draco were back in the common room. He didn't want to head back up to the dormitory yet—he had a feeling Zabini would still be awake.

“I tried to stall him as long as I could, but then I couldn't think of any more excuses. He'd been gone for about five minutes before I realized I could do something else. I figured if you and Hermione didn't have enough time, I could be a distraction until you got away. But I guess you'd already gotten caught.”

“Only because we forgot the Cloak on top of the Astronomy Tower,” said Harry with a sigh. “We actually saw Zabini get caught by McGonagall right before we made it up. We thought we were home free and then we forgot the Cloak and got nabbed by Filch.”

Draco sighed. “Well, at least they don't think there was an actual dragon involved. And we got rid of Norbert. Yeah, detention is going to be awful and we're in last place now, but it could be worse.”

“I guess.”

Harry didn't sleep all night. He, like Draco, was dreading the dawn. What would happen when the rest of Slytherin found out what they'd done?

At first, Slytherins passing the giant hourglasses that recorded the House points the next day thought there'd been a mistake. How could they suddenly have a hundred and twenty points fewer than yesterday? And then the story started to spread: Harry Potter, the famous Harry Potter, their hero of two Quidditch matches, had lost them all those points, him and a couple of other stupid first years.

From being one of the most popular and admired people at the school, Harry was suddenly the most hated. Even Ravenclaws turned on him, because most of them blamed him for involving Hermione and losing them fifty points, too. Everywhere Harry went, people pointed and didn't trouble to lower their voices as they insulted him. Gryffindors, on the other hand, clapped as he walked past them, whistling and cheering, “Thanks, Potter, we owe you one!”

Fortunately, Ron, Hermione, and Draco still stood by him.

“They'll all forget about this in a few weeks,” Ron said sagely. “Fred and George have lost loads of points for Ravenclaw in all the time they've been here, and people still like them.”

“They've never lost a hundred points in one go, though, have they?” said Harry miserably. He wasn't counting Zabini's points—he wasn't taking responsibility for him being a slimy git.

“Well—no,” Ron admitted.

It was a bit late to repair the damage, but Harry swore to himself not to meddle in things that weren't his business from now on. He'd had it with sneaking around and spying. He felt so ashamed that he went to Flint and offered to resign from the Quidditch team.

“ _Resign?_ ” Flint thundered. “What good'll that do? How are we going to get any points back if we can't win at Quidditch?”

But even Quidditch had lost its fun. The rest of the team wouldn't speak to Harry during practice, and if they had to speak about him, they called him “the Seeker.”

Draco and Hermione were suffering, too. They didn't have as bad a time as Harry, because they weren't as well-known, but nobody would speak to them, either. Hermione had stopped drawing attention to herself in class, keeping her head down and working in silence.

Harry was almost glad that the exams weren't far away. All the studying he had to do kept his mind off his misery. He, Draco, Ron, and Hermione kept to themselves, working late into the night, trying to remember the ingredients in complicated potions, learn charms and spells by heart, memorize the dates of magical discoveries and goblin rebellions...

Then, about a week before the exams were due to start, Harry's new resolution not to interfere in anything that didn't concern him was put to an unexpected test. Walking back from the library on his own one afternoon, he heard somebody whimpering from a classroom up ahead. As he drew closer, he heard Quirrell's voice.

“No—no—not again, please—”

It sounded as though someone was threatening him. Harry moved closer.

“All right—all right—” he heard Quirrell sob.

Next second, Quirrell came hurrying out of the classroom straightening his turban. He was pale and looked as though he was about to cry. He strode out of sight; Harry didn't think Quirrell had even noticed him. He waited until Quirrell's footsteps had disappeared, then peered into the classroom. It was empty, but a door stood ajar at the other end. Harry was halfway toward it before he remembered what he'd promised himself about not meddling.

All the same, he'd have gambled twelve Sorcerer's Stones that Snape had just left the room, and from what Harry had just heard, Snape would be walking with a new spring in his step—Quirrell seemed to have given in at last.

Harry went back to the library, where Hermione was testing Ron and Draco on Astronomy. Harry told them what he'd heard.

“Snape's done it, then!” said Ron. “If Quirrell's told him how to break his anti-Dark Force spell—”

“There's still Fluffy, though,” said Hermione.

“Maybe Snape's found a way to get past him without asking Hagrid,” said Draco, looking up from the thousands of books surrounding them. “I bet there's a book somewhere in here telling you how to get past a three-headed dog. So what do we do, Harry?”

The light of adventure was kindling again in Draco's eyes, but Hermione answered before Harry could.

“Go to Dumbledore. That's what we should have done ages ago. If we try anything ourselves, we'll be thrown out for sure.”

“But we've got no _proof_!” said Harry. “Quirrell's too scared to back us up. Snape's only got to say he doesn't know how the troll got in at Halloween and that he was nowhere near the third floor—who do you think they'll believe, him or us? It's not exactly a secret we hate him, Dumbledore'll think we made it up to get him sacked. Filch wouldn't help us if his life depended on it, he's too friendly with Snape, and the more students get thrown out, the better, he'll think. And don't forget, we're not supposed to know about the Stone or Fluffy. That'll take a lot of explaining.”

Hermione and Draco looked convinced, but Ron didn't.

“If we just do a bit of poking around—”

“No,” said Harry flatly, “we've done enough poking around.”

He pulled a map of Jupiter toward him and started learning the names of its moons.

 

The following morning, notes were delivered to Harry, Draco, and Hermione at the breakfast table. They were all the same:

Your detention will take place at eleven o'clock tonight.

Meet Mr. Filch in the entrance hall.

Professor M. McGonagall

Harry had forgotten they still had detentions to do in the furor over the points they'd lost. He half-expected Hermione to complain that this was a whole night of studying lost, but she didn't say a word. Like Harry, she felt they deserved what they'd got.

Shortly before eleven that night, Harry and Draco made their way to the entrance hall. Filch was already there, and Hermione was barely a minute behind them—and then Blaise Zabini also appeared, looking irritated. Harry had also forgotten that Zabini had gotten a detention, too.

“Follow me,” said Filch, lighting a lamp and leading them outside.

“I bet you'll think twice about breaking a school rule again, won't you, eh?” he said, leering at them. “Oh, yes... hard work and pain are the best teachers if you ask me... It's just a pity they let the old punishments die out... hang you by your wrists from the ceiling for a few days, I've got the chains still in my office, keep 'em well oiled in case they're ever needed... Right, off we go, and don't think of running off, now, it'll be worse for you if you do.”

They marched off across the dark grounds. Harry wondered what their punishment was going to be. It must be something really horrible, or Filch wouldn't be sounding so delighted.

The moon was bright, but clouds scudding across it kept throwing them into darkness. Ahead, Harry could see the lighted windows of Hagrid's hut. Then they heard a distant shout.

“Is that you, Filch? Hurry up, I want ter get started.”

Harry's heart rose; if they were going to be working with Hagrid it wouldn't be so bad. His relief must have shown on his face, because Filch said, “I suppose you think you'll be enjoying yourself with that oaf? Well, think again, boy—it's into the forest you're going and I'm much mistaken if you'll all come out in one piece.”

At this, Zabini stopped dead in his tracks.

“The forest?” he repeated, and he didn't sound quite as cool as usual. “We can't go in there at night—there's all sorts of things in there—werewolves, I heard.”

“That's your problem, isn't it?” said Filch, his voice cracking with glee. “Should've thought of them werewolves before you got into trouble, shouldn't you?”

Hagrid came striding toward them out of the dark, Fang at his heel. He was carrying his large crossbow, and a quiver of arrows hung over his shoulder.

“Abou' time,” he said. “I bin waitin' fer half an hour already. All right, you lot?”

“I shouldn't be too friendly to them, Hagrid,” said Filch coldly, “they're here to be punished, after all.”

“That's why you're late, is it?” said Hagrid, frowning at Filch. “Bin lecturin' them, eh? 'Snot your place to do that. Yeh've done yer bit, I'll take over from here.”

“I'll be back at dawn,” said Filch, “for what's left of them,” he added nastily, and he turned and started back toward the castle, his lamp bobbing away in the darkness.

Zabini now turned to Hagrid.

“I'm not going into that forest,” he said, and Harry was pleased to hear the note of panic in his voice.

“Shut up,” Draco muttered.

“Yeh are if yeh want ter stay at Hogwarts,” said Hagrid fiercely. “Yeh've done wrong an' now yeh've got ter pay fer it.”

“But this is servant stuff, it's not for students to do. I thought we'd be copying lines or something, if my mother knew I was doing this, she'd—”

“—tell yer that's how it is at Hogwarts,” Hagrid growled. “Copyin' lines! What good's that ter anyone? Yeh'll do summat useful or yeh'll get out. If yeh think yer mother'd rather you were expelled, then get back off ter the castle an' pack. Go on!”

Zabini didn't move. He looked at Hagrid furiously, but then dropped his gaze.

“Right then,” said Hagrid, “now, listen carefully, 'cause it's dangerous what we're gonna do tonight, an' I don' want no one takin' risks. Follow me over here a moment.”

He led them over to the very edge of the forest. Holding his lamp up high, he pointed down a narrow, winding earth track that disappeared into the thick black trees. A light breeze lifted their hair as they looked into the forest.

“Look there,” said Hagrid, “see that stuff shinin' on the ground? Silvery stuff? That's unicorn blood. There's a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat. This is the second time in a week. I found one dead last Wednesday. We're gonna try an' find the poor thing. We might have ter put it out of its misery.”

“And... what if whatever hurt the unicorn finds us first?” said Draco, asking what Harry had been thinking.

“There's nothin' that lives in the forest that'll hurt yeh if yer with me or Fang,” said Hagrid. “An' keep ter the path. Right, now, we're gonna split inter two parties an' follow the trail in diff'rent directions. There's blood all over the place, it must've bin staggerin' around since last night at least.”

“I want Fang,” said Zabini quickly, looking at Fang's long teeth.

“All right, but I warn yeh, he's a coward,” said Hagrid. “So me, Harry, an' Hermione'll go one way an' Blaise, Draco, an' Fang'll go the other.”

Draco and Zabini glared at each other but neither protested.

“Now, if any of us finds the unicorn, we'll send up green sparks, right? Get yer wands out an' practice now—that's it—an' if anyone gets in trouble, send up red sparks, an' we'll all come an' find yeh—so, be careful—let's go.”

The forest was black and silent. A little way into it they reached a fork in the earth path, and Harry, Hermione, and Hagrid took the left path while Draco, Zabini, and Fang took the right.

They walked in silence, their eyes on the ground. Every now and then a ray of moonlight through the branches above lit a spot of silver-blue blood on the fallen leaves.

Harry saw that Hagrid looked very worried.

“ _Could_ a werewolf be killing the unicorns?” Harry asked.

“Not fast enough,” said Hagrid. “It's not easy ter catch a unicorn, they're powerful magic creatures. I never knew one ter be hurt before.”

They walked past a mossy stump. Harry could hear running water; there must be a stream somewhere close by. There were still spots of unicorn blood here and there along the winding path.

“You all right, Hermione?” Hagrid whispered. “Don' worry, it can't've gone far if it's this badly hurt, an' then we'll be able ter—GET BEHIND THAT TREE!”

Hagrid seized Harry and Hermione and hoisted them off the path behind a towering oak. He pulled out an arrow and fitted it into his crossbow, raising it, ready to fire. The three of them listened. Something was slithering over dead leaves nearby: it sounded like a cloak trailing on the ground. Hagrid was squinting up the dark path, but after a few seconds, the sound faded away.

“I knew it,” he murmured. “There's summat in here that shouldn't be.”

“A werewolf?” Harry suggested.

“That wasn' no werewolf an' it wasn' no unicorn, neither,” said Hagrid grimly. “Right, follow me, but careful, now.”

They walked more slowly, ears straining for the faintest sound. Suddenly, in a clearing ahead, something definitely moved.

“Who's there?” Hagrid called. “Show yerself—I'm armed!”

And into the clearing came—was it a man, or a horse? To the waist, a man, with red hair and beard, but below that was a horse's gleaming chestnut body with a long, reddish tail. Harry and Hermione's jaws dropped.

“Oh, it's you, Ronan,” said Hagrid in relief. “How are yeh?”

He walked forward and shook the centaur's hand.

“Good evening to you, Hagrid,” said Ronan. He had a deep, sorrowful voice. “Were you going to shoot me?”

“Can't be too careful, Ronan,” said Hagrid, patting his crossbow. “There's summat bad loose in the forest. This is Harry Potter an' Hermione Granger, by the way. Students up at the school. An' this is Ronan, you two. He's a centaur.”

“We'd noticed,” said Hermione faintly.

“Good evening,” said Ronan. “Students, are you? And do you learn much, up at the school?”

“Erm—”

“A bit,” said Hermione timidly.

“A bit. Well, that's something.” Ronan sighed. He flung his head back and stared at the sky. “Mars is bright tonight.”

“Yeah,” said Hagrid, glancing up, too. “Listen, I'm glad we've run inter yeh, Ronan, 'cause there's a unicorn bin hurt—you seen anythin'?”

Ronan didn't answer immediately. He stared unblinkingly upward, then sighed again.

“Always the innocent are the first victims,” he said. “So it has been for ages past, so it is now.”

“Yeah,” said Hagrid, “but have yeh seen anythin', Ronan? Anythin' unusual?”

“Mars is bright tonight,” Ronan repeated, while Hagrid watched him impatiently. “Unusually bright.”

“Yeah, but I was meanin' anythin' a bit nearer home,” said Hagrid. “So yeh haven't noticed anythin' strange?”

Yet again, Ronan took a while to answer. At last, he said, “The forest hides many secrets.”

A movement in the trees behind Ronan made Hagrid raise his bow again, but it was only a second centaur, black-haired and -bodied and wilder-looking than Ronan.

“Hullo, Bane,” said Hagrid. “All right?”

“Good evening, Hagrid. I hope you are well?”

“Well enough. Look, I've jus' bin askin' Ronan, you seen anythin' odd in here lately? There's a unicorn bin injured—would yeh know anythin' about it?”

Bane walked over to stand next to Ronan. He looked skyward.

“Mars is bright tonight,” he said simply.

“We've heard,” said Hagrid grumpily. “Well, if either of you do see anythin', let me know, won't yeh? We'll be off, then.”

Harry and Hermione followed him out of the clearing, staring over their shoulders at Ronan and Bane until the trees blocked their view.

“Never,” said Hagrid irritably, “try an' get a straight answer out of a centaur. Ruddy stargazers. Not interested in anythin' closer'n the moon.”

“Are there many of _them_ in here?” asked Hermione.

“Oh, a fair few... Keep themselves to themselves, mostly, but they're good enough about turnin' up if I ever want a word. They're deep, mind, centaurs... they know things... jus' don' let on much.”

“D'you think that was a centaur we heard earlier?” said Harry.

“Did that sound like hooves to you? Nah, if yeh ask me, that was what's bin killin' the unicorns—never heard anythin' like it before.”

They walked on through the dense, dark trees. Harry kept looking nervously over his shoulder. He had the nasty feeling they were being watched. He was very glad they had Hagrid and his crossbow with them. They had just passed a bend in the path when Hermione grabbed Hagrid's arm.

“Hagrid! Look! Red sparks, the others are in trouble!”

“You two wait here!” Hagrid shouted. “Stay on the path, I'll come back for yeh!”

They heard him crashing away through the undergrowth and stood looking at each other, very scared, until they couldn't hear anything but the rustling of leaves around them.

“You don't think they've been hurt, do you?” whispered Hermione.

“I don't care if Zabini has, but if something's got Draco... he tried to cause a distraction after Zabini left, to help us get away. It didn't work, but it's our fault he's here in the first place.”

“I didn't know that.”

The minutes dragged by. Their ears seemed sharper than usual. Harry's seemed to be picking up every sigh of the wind, every cracking twig. What was going on? Where were the others?

At last, a great crunching noise announced Hagrid's return. Draco, Zabini, and Fang were with him. Hagrid was fuming. Both Draco and Zabini were covered with dirt with leaves in their hair, and Zabini had a purpling bruise on his cheek. Harry guessed they'd gotten into a fight and Zabini had sent up the sparks—probably because he was coming off worse, judging by the smirk Draco shot him when Hagrid's back was turned.

“We'll be lucky ter catch anythin' now, with the racket you two were makin'. Right, we're changin' groups—Draco, you stay with me an' Hermione, Harry, you go with Fang an' this idiot. I'm sorry,” Hagrid added in a whisper to Harry, “but he'll have a harder time goading you, an' we've got to get this done.”

So Harry set off into the heart of the forest with Zabini and Fang. They walked for nearly half an hour, deeper and deeper into the forest, until the path became almost impossible to follow because the trees were so thick. Harry thought the blood seemed to be getting thicker. There were splashes on the roots of a tree, as though the poor creature had been thrashing around in pain close by. Harry could see a clearing ahead, through the tangled branches of an ancient oak.

“Look—” he murmured, holding out his arm to stop Zabini.

Something bright white was gleaming on the ground. They inched closer.

It was the unicorn all right, and it was dead. Harry had never seen anything so beautiful and sad. Its long, slender legs were stuck out at odd angles where it had fallen and its mane was spread pearly-white on the dark leaves.

Harry had taken one step toward it when a slithering sound made him freeze where he stood. A bush on the edge of the clearing quivered... Then, out of the shadows, a hooded figure came crawling across the ground like some stalking beast. Harry, Zabini, and Fang stood transfixed. The cloaked figure reached the unicorn, lowered its head over the wound in the animal's side, and began to drink its blood.

“AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!”

Zabini let out a terrible scream and bolted—so did Fang. The hooded figure raised its head and looked right at Harry—unicorn blood was still dribbling down its front. It got to its feet and came swiftly toward Harry—he couldn't move for fear.

Then a pain like he'd never felt before pierced his head, it was as though his scar were on fire. Half blinded, he staggered backward. He heard hooves behind him, galloping, and something jumped clean over Harry, charging at the figure.

The pain in Harry's head was so bad he fell to his knees. It took a minute or two to pass. When he looked up, the figure had gone. A centaur was standing over him, not Ronan or Bane; this one looked younger; he had white-blond hair and a palomino body.

“Are you all right?” said the centaur, pulling Harry to his feet.

“Yes—thank you—what _was_ that?”

The centaur didn't answer. He had astonishingly blue eyes, like pale sapphires. He looked carefully at Harry, his eyes lingering on the scar that stood out, livid, on Harry's forehead.

“You are the Potter boy,” he said. “You had better get back to Hagrid. The forest is not safe at this time—especially for you. Can you ride? It will be quicker this way.

“My name is Firenze,” he added, as he lowered himself onto his front legs so that Harry could clamber onto his back.

There was suddenly a sound of more galloping from the other side of the clearing. Ronan and Bane came bursting through the trees, their flanks heaving and sweaty.

“Firenze!” Bane thundered. “What are you doing? You have a human on your back! Have you no shame? Are you a common mule?”

“Do you realize who this is?” said Firenze. “This is the Potter boy. The quicker he leaves the forest, the better.”

“What have you been telling him?” growled Bane. “Remember, Firenze, we are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens. Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?”

Ronan pawed the ground nervously. “I'm sure Firenze thought he was acting for the best,” he said in his gloomy voice.

Bane kicked his back legs in anger.

“For the best! What is that to do with us? Centaurs are concerned with what has been foretold! It is not our business to run around like donkeys after stray humans in our forest!”

Firenze suddenly reared onto his hind legs in anger, so that Harry had to grab his shoulders to stay on.

“Do you not see that unicorn?” Firenze bellowed at Bane. “Do you not understand why it was killed? Or have the planets not let you in on that secret? I set myself against what is lurking in this forest, Bane, yes, with humans alongside me if I must.”

And Firenze whisked around; with Harry clutching on as best he could, they plunged off into the trees, leaving Ronan and Bane behind them.

Harry didn't have a clue what was going on.

“Why's Bane so angry?” he asked. “What was that thing you saved me from, anyway?”

Firenze slowed to a walk, warned Harry to keep his head bowed in case of low-hanging branches, but did not answer Harry's question. They made their way through the trees in silence for so long that Harry thought Firenze didn't want to talk to him anymore. They were passing through a particularly dense patch of trees, however, when Firenze suddenly stopped.

“Harry Potter, do you know what unicorn blood is used for?”

“No,” said Harry, startled by the odd question. “We've only used the horn and tail hair in Potions.”

“That is because it is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn,” said Firenze. “Only one who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, would commit such a crime. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenseless to save yourself, and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips."

Harry stared at the back of Firenze's head, which was dappled silver in the moonlight.

“But who'd be that desperate?” he wondered aloud. “If you're going to be cursed forever, death's better, isn't it?”

“It is,” Firenze agreed, “unless all you need to do is stay alive long enough to drink something else—something that will bring you back to full strength and power—something that will mean you can never die. Mr. Potter, do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment?”

“The Sorcerer's Stone! Of course—the Elixir of Life! But I don't understand who—”

“Can you think of nobody who has waited many years to return to power, who has clung to life, awaiting their chance?”

It was as though an iron fist had clenched suddenly around Harry's heart. Over the rustling of the trees, he seemed to hear once more what Hagrid had told him on the night they met: “Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die.”

“Do you mean,” Harry croaked, “that was _Vol—_ ”

“Harry! Harry, are you all right?”

Hermione was running toward them down the path, Hagrid puffing along behind her.

“I'm fine,” said Harry, hardly knowing what he was saying. “The unicorn's dead, Hagrid, it's in that clearing back there.”

“This is where I leave you,” Firenze murmured as Hagrid hurried off to examine the unicorn. “You are safe now.”

Harry slid off his back.

“Good luck, Harry Potter,” said Firenze. “The planets have been read wrongly before now, even by centaurs. I hope this is one of those times.”

He turned and cantered back into the depths of the forest, leaving Harry shivering behind him.

 

Harry was bursting to tell Draco and Hermione what he'd seen in the clearing, but he also wanted to wait until he could tell Ron at the same time. So the next morning, as breakfast was finishing up, he got Ron and Hermione's attention and pulled them and Draco out into the entrance hall. He paced for a few moments until he figured out how to begin.

“Snape wants the Stone for Voldemort... and Voldemort's waiting in the forest... and all this time we thought Snape just wanted to get rich...”

“Stop saying the name!” said Ron in a terrified whisper, as if he thought Voldemort could hear them. Draco, too, looked alarmed.

Harry wasn't listening. “Firenze saved me, but he shouldn't have done so... Bane was furious... he was talking about interfering with what the planets say is going to happen... They must show that Voldemort's coming back... Bane thinks Firenze should have let Voldemort kill me... I suppose that's written in the stars as well.”

“ _Will you stop saying the name?”_ Ron hissed.

“So all I've got to wait for now is Snape to steal the Stone,” Harry went on feverishly, “then Voldemort will be able to come and finish me off... Well, I suppose Bane'll be happy.”

Hermione looked very frightened, but she had a word of comfort.

“Harry, everyone says Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was ever afraid of. With Dumbledore around, You-Know-Who won't touch you. Anyway, who says the centaurs are right? It all sounds like fortune-telling to me, and Professor Flitwick says that's a very imprecise branch of magic.”

Harry could agree that Hermione had a point, and so when he went back to the dormitory with Draco before class, he was focused on that. So it took him by surprise when, as he pulled open his trunk to rummage for his books, he found his Invisibility Cloak folded neatly on top of the stack. There was a note pinned to it:

_Just in case._

 


	11. XI

In years to come, Harry would never quite remember how he had managed to get through his exams when he half-expected Voldemort to come bursting through the door at any moment. Yet the days crept by, and there could be no doubt that Fluffy was still alive and well behind the locked door.

It was sweltering hot, especially in the large classroom where they did their written papers. They had been given special, new quills for the exams, which had been bewitched with an Anti-Cheating Spell.

They had practical exams as well. Professor Flitwick called them one by one into his class to see if they could make a pineapple tap-dance across a desk. Professor McGonagall watched them turn a mouse into a snuffbox—points were given for how pretty the snuffbox was, but taken away if it had whiskers. Snape made them all nervous, breathing down their necks while they tried to remember how to make a Forgetfulness potion.

Harry did the best he could, trying to ignore the stabbing pains in his forehead, which had been bothering him ever since his trip to the forest. Draco thought Harry had a bad case of exam nerves because Harry couldn't sleep, but the truth was that Harry kept being woken up by his old nightmare, except that it was now worse than ever because there was a hooded figure dripping blood in it.

Maybe it was because they hadn't seen what Harry had seen in the forest, or because they didn't have scars burning their foreheads, but Ron and Hermione didn't seem as worried about the Stone as Harry. The idea of Voldemort certainly scared them, but he didn't keep visiting them in dreams, and they were so busy with their studying they didn't have as much time to fret about what Snape or anyone else might be up to. Only Draco seemed to be as nearly worried as Harry.

Their very last exam was History of Magic. One hour of answering questions about batty old wizards who'd invented self-stirring cauldrons and they'd be free, free for a whole wonderful week until their exam results came out. When the ghost of Professor Binns told them to put down their quills and roll up their parchment, Harry couldn't help cheering with the rest.

“That was far easier than I thought it would be,” said Hermione as they joined the crowds flocking out onto the sunny grounds. “I needn't have learned about the 1637 Werewolf Code of Conduct or the uprising of Elfric the Eager.”

Hermione always liked to go through their exam papers afterward, but Ron said this made him feel ill, so they wandered down to the lake and flopped under a tree. The Weasley twins and Lee Jordan were tickling the tentacles of a giant squid, which was basking in the warm shallows.

“No more studying,” Ron sighed happily, stretching out on the grass. “You could look more cheerful, Harry, we've got a week before we find out how badly we've done, there's no need to worry yet.”

Harry was rubbing his forehead.

“I wish I knew what this _means_!” he burst out angrily. “My scar keeps hurting—it's happened before, but never as often as this.”

“Go to Madam Pomfrey,” Hermione suggested.

“I'm not ill,” said Harry. “I think it's a warning... it means danger's coming...”

Ron couldn't get worked up, it was too hot.

“Harry, relax, Hermione's right, the Stone's safe as long as Dumbledore's around. Anyway, we've never had any proof Snape found out how to get past Fluffy. He nearly had his leg ripped off once, he's not going to try it again in a hurry. And Neville Longbottom will play Quidditch for England before Hagrid lets Dumbledore down.”

Draco snorted with laughter.

Harry nodded, but he couldn't shake off a lurking feeling that there was something he'd forgotten to do, something important. When he tried to explain this, Hermione said, “That's just the exams. I woke up last night and was halfway through my Transfiguration notes before I remembered we'd already done that one.”

Harry was quite sure the unsettled feeling didn't have anything to do with work, though. He watched an owl flutter toward the school across the bright blue sky, a note clamped in its mouth. Hagrid was the only one who sent him letters. Hagrid would never betray Dumbledore. Hagrid would never tell anyone how to get past Fluffy... never... but—

Harry suddenly jumped to his feet.

“Where're you going?” said Draco.

“I've just thought of something,” said Harry. He felt cold and imagined he'd turned quite pale. “We've got to go see Hagrid, now.”

“Why?” panted Hermione, hurrying to keep up.

“Don't you think it's a bit odd,” said Harry, scrambling up the grassy slope, “that what Hagrid wants more than anything else is a dragon, and a stranger turns up who just happens to have an egg in their pocket? How many people wander around with dragon eggs if it's against wizard law? Lucky they found Hagrid, don't you think? Why didn't I see it before?”

“What are you talking about?” said Ron, but Harry, sprinting across the grounds toward the forest, didn't answer.

Hagrid was sitting in an armchair outside his house; his trousers and sleeves were rolled up, and he was shelling peas into a large bowl.

“Hullo,” he said, smiling. “Finished yer exams? Got time fer a drink?”

“Yes, please,” said Ron, but Harry cut him off.

“No, we're in a hurry. Hagrid, I've got to ask you something. You know that night you won Norbert? What did the stranger you were playing cards with look like?”

“Dunno,” said Hagrid casually, “he wouldn' take his cloak off.”

He saw the four of them look stunned and raised his eyebrows.

“It's not tha' unusual, yeh get a lot o' funny folk in the Hog's Head—that's one o' the pubs down in the village. Mighta bin a dragon dealer, mightn' he? I never saw his face, he kept his hood up.”

Harry sank down next to the bowl of peas.

“What did you talk about, Hagrid? Did you mention Hogwarts at all?”

“Mighta come up,” said Hagrid, frowning as he tried to remember. “Yeah... he asked what I did, an' I told him I was gamekeeper here... He asked a bit about the sorta creatures I look after... so I told him... an' I said what I'd always really wanted was a dragon... an' then... I can' remember too well, 'cause he kept buyin' me drinks... Let's see... yeah, then he said he had the dragon egg an' we could play cards fer it if I wanted... but he had ter be sure I could hadn't it, he didn' want it ter go ter any old home... So I told him, after Fluffy, a dragon would be easy...”

“And did he—did he seem interested in Fluffy?” Harry asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

“Well—yeah—how many three-headed dogs d'yeh meet, even around Hogwarts? So I told him, Fluffy's a piece o' cake if yeh know how to calm him down, jus' play him a bit o' music an' he'll go straight off ter sleep—”

Hagrid suddenly looked horrified.

“I shouldn'ta told yeh that!” he blurted out. “Forget I said it! Hey—where're yeh goin'?”

The four of them didn't speak to each other at all until they came to a halt in the entrance hall, which seemed very cold and gloomy after the grounds.

“We've got to go to Dumbledore,” said Harry. “Hagrid told that stranger how to get past Fluffy, and it was either Snape or Voldemort under that cloak—it must've been easy, once he'd got Hagrid drunk. I just hope Dumbledore believes us. Firenze might back us up if Bane doesn't stop him. Where's Dumbledore's office?”

They looked around, as if hoping to see a sign pointing them in the right direction. They had never been told where Dumbledore lived, nor did they know anyone who had been sent to see him.

“We'll just have to—” Harry began, but a voice suddenly rang across the hall.

“What are you four doing inside?”

It was Professor McGonagall, carrying a large pile of books.

“We want to see Professor Dumbledore,” said Hermione, rather bravely, Harry, Ron, and Draco thought.

“See Professor Dumbledore?” Professor McGonagall repeated, as though this was a very fishy thing to want to do. “Why?”

Harry swallowed—now what?

“It's sort of secret,” he said, but he wished at once that he hadn't, because Professor McGonagall's nostrils flared.

“Professor Dumbledore left ten minutes ago,” she said coldly. “He received an urgent owl from the Ministry of Magic and flew off for London at once.”

“He's _gone_?” said Harry frantically. “ _Now_?”

“Professor Dumbledore is a very great wizard, Potter, he has many demands on his time—”

“But this is important.”

“Something you have to say is more important than the Ministry of Magic, Potter?”

“Look,” said Harry, throwing caution to the winds, “Professor—it's about the Sorcerer's Stone—”

Whatever Professor McGonagall had expected, it wasn't that. The books she was carrying tumbled out of her arms, but she didn't pick them up.

“How do you know—?” she spluttered.

“Professor, I think—I _know—_ that Sn—that someone's going to try and steal the Stone. I've got to talk to Professor Dumbledore.”

She eyed him with a mixture of shock and suspicion. “Professor Dumbledore will be back tomorrow,” she said finally. “I don't know how you found out about the Stone, but rest assured, no one can possibly steal it, it's too well protected.”

“But Professor—”

“Potter, I know what I'm talking about,” she said shortly. She bent down and gathered up the fallen books. “I suggest you all go back outside and enjoy the sunshine.”

But they didn't.

“It's tonight,” said Harry, once he was sure Professor McGonagall was out of earshot. “Snape's going through the trapdoor tonight. He's found out everything he needs, and now he's got Dumbledore out of the way. He sent that note, I bet the Ministry of Magic will get a real shock when Dumbledore turns up.”

“But what can we—”

Hermione gasped. Harry, Draco, and Ron wheeled round.

Snape was standing there.

“Good afternoon,” he said smoothly.

They stared at him.

“You shouldn't be inside on a day like this,” he said, with an odd, twisted smile.

“We were—” Harry began, without any idea what he was going to say.

“You want to be more careful,” said Snape. “Hanging around like this, people will think you're... up to something. And we all know Slytherin can't really afford to lose any more points, can we?” he added, with a piercing glare at Harry and Draco.

Harry flushed. They turned to go outside, but Snape called them back.

“Be warned, Potter—any more nighttime wanderings and I will personally make sure you are expelled. Good day to you.”

He strode off in the direction of the staffroom.

Out on the stone steps, Harry turned to the others. “Right, here's what we've got to do,” he whispered urgently. “One of us has got to keep an eye on Snape—wait outside the staffroom and follow him if he leaves it. Hermione, you'd better do that.”

“Why me?”

“It's obvious,” said Ron. “You can pretend to be waiting for Professor Flitwick, you know.” He put on a high voice. “'Oh, Professor Flitwick, I'm so worried, I think I got question fourteen _b_ wrong...'”

“Oh, shut up,” said Hermione, but she agreed to go and watch out for Snape.

“And we'd better stay outside the third-floor corridor,” Harry told Ron and Draco. “Come on.”

But that part of the plan didn't work. No sooner had they reached the door that separated Fluffy from the rest of the school than Professor McGonagall turned up again, and this time, she lost her temper.

“I suppose you think you're harder to get past than a pack of enchantments!” she stormed. “Enough of this nonsense! If I hear you've come anywhere near here again, I'll dock another fifty points for each of you! Go on!”

The three of them shuffled off to the Hufflepuff common room, their unofficial meeting place. Harry had just said, “At least Hermione's still on Snape's tail” when the door to the Hufflepuff common room swung open and Hermione appeared, following a pair of Hufflepuff fourth years.

“I'm sorry, Harry!” she wailed. “Snape came out and asked me what I was doing, so I said I was waiting for Flitwick, and Snape went to get him, and I've only just got away, I don't know where Snape went.”

“Well, that's it then, isn't it?” Harry said.

The other three stared at him. His face had gone cold again and his eyes were glittering.

“I'm going out tonight and I'm going to try and get to the Stone first.”

“You're mad!” Draco said.

“You can't!” said Hermione. “After what McGonagall and Snape have said? You'll be expelled!”

“So what?” Harry snapped. “Don't you understand? If Snape gets hold of the Stone, Voldemort's coming back! Haven't you heard what it was like when he was trying to take over? There won't be any Hogwarts to get expelled from! He'll flatten it, or turn it into a school for the Dark Arts! Losing points doesn't matter anymore, can't you see? D'you think he'll leave you and your families alone over the House Cup? If I get caught before I can get to the Stone, well, I'll have to go back to the Dursleys and wait for Voldemort to find me there, it's only dying a bit later than I would have, because I'm never going over to the Dark Side! I'm going through that trapdoor tonight and nothing you three say is going to stop me! Voldemort killed my parents, remember?”

He glared at them.

“You're right, Harry,” said Hermione in a small voice.

“I'll use the Invisibility Cloak,” said Harry. “It's just lucky I got it back.”

“But will it cover all four of us?” said Draco.

“All—all four of us?”

“Oh, come off it, you don't think we'd let you go alone?” said Ron.

“Of course not,” said Hermione briskly. “How do you think you'd get to the Stone without us? I'd better go and look through my books, there might be something useful there...”

“But if we get caught, you three will be expelled, too.”

“Not if I can help it,” said Hermione grimly. “Flitwick told me in secret that I got a hundred and twelve percent on his exam. They're not throwing me out after that.”

“Besides, if Snape gets the Stone, we'll all have bigger things to worry about than getting expelled,” added Draco.

 

After dinner, after Harry had doubled back for the Cloak, the four of them met back up in the Hufflepuff common room. Nobody bothered them; aside from Ron, none of them really had any Hufflepuff friends. It was the first time that being ignored didn't bother them. Hermione was skimming through all her notes, hoping to come across one of the enchantments they were about to try to break. Harry, Ron, and Draco didn't talk much. They were all thinking about what they were about to do.

Slowly the room emptied as people drifted off to bed.

“Better get the Cloak,” Ron muttered as Cedric Diggory finally left, yawning and stretching. Harry hopped off his chair and unfolded the Cloak—he'd been carefully sitting on it since just after dinner. He'd also pocketed the flute Hagrid had given him for Christmas when he'd been back in his own dormitory—he didn't feel much like singing.

“We'd better put the Cloak on here, and make sure it covers all four of us—if Filch spots one of our feet wandering along on its own...”

Fortunately, all four of them just barely fit, although it was a tight squeeze. They crept out into the entrance hall and up the first flight of stairs. At the top, they spotted Mrs. Norris skulking about ten feet away.

“Oh, let's kick her, just this once,” Ron whispered in Harry's ear, but Harry shook his head. As they carefully skirted her, Mrs. Norris turned her lamplike eyes on them, but didn't do anything.

They didn't meet anyone else until they reached the staircase up to the third floor. Peeves was bobbing halfway up, loosening the carpet so that people would trip.

“Who's there?” he said suddenly as they climbed toward him. He narrowed his wicked black eyes. “Know you're there, even if I can't see you. Are you a ghoulie or a ghostie or a wee student beastie?”

He rose up in the air and floated there, squinting at them.

“Should call Filch, I should, if something's a-creeping around unseen.”

For a frantic moment, they all looked at each other, and then Draco opened his mouth.

“Peeves,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “the Bloody Baron has his own reasons for being invisible.”

Peeves almost fell out of the air in shock. He caught himself in time and hovered about a foot off the stairs.

“So sorry, your bloodiness, Mr. Baron, sir,” he said greasily. “My mistake, my mistake—I didn't see you—of course I didn't, you're invisible—forgive old Peevsie his little joke, sir.”

“I have business tonight here, Peeves,” croaked Draco. “Stay away from this place tonight.”

“I will, sir, I most certainly will,” said Peeves, rising up in the air again. “Hope your business goes well, Baron, I'll not bother you.”

And he scooted off.

“ _Brilliant_ , Draco!” whispered Ron.

A few seconds later, they were there, outside the third-floor corridor—and the door was already ajar.

“Well, there you are,” said Harry quietly, “Snape's already got past Fluffy.”

Seeing the open door somehow seemed to impress upon all four of them what was facing them. Underneath the Cloak, Harry turned to the other three.

“If you want to go back, I won't blame you,” he said. “You can take the Cloak, I won't need it now.”

“Don't be stupid,” said Draco.

“We're coming with you,” said Hermione.

“Nothing could stop us,” said Ron.

Harry pushed the door open.

As the door creaked, low, rumbling growls met their ears. All three of the dog's noses sniffed madly in their direction, even though it couldn't see them.

“What's that at its feet?” Hermione whispered.

“Looks like a harp,” Draco said.

“Snape must gave left it there,” said Ron.

“It must wake up the moment you stop playing,” said Harry. “Well, here goes...”

He put Hagrid's flute to his lips and blew. It wasn't really a tune, but from the first note, the beast's eyes began to droop. Harry hardly drew breath. Slowly, the dog's growls ceased—it tottered on its paws and fell to its knees, then it slumped to the ground, fast asleep.

“Keep playing,” Draco warned Harry as they slipped out of the Cloak and crept toward the trapdoor. They could feel the dog's hot, smelly breath as they approached the giant heads.

“I think we'll be able to pull the door open,” said Ron, peering over the dog's back. “Want to go first, Hermione?”

“No, I don't!”

“All right.” Ron gritted his teeth and stepped carefully over the dog's legs. He bent and pulled the ring of the trapdoor, which swung up and open.

“What can you see?” Hermione said anxiously.

“Nothing—just black—there's no way of climbing down, we'll just have to drop.”

Harry, who was still playing the flute, swatted at Draco's arm to get his attention and pointed to himself.

“Harry wants to go first,” Draco said.

“Are you sure?” said Ron. “I don't know how deep this thing goes. Give the flute to one of them so we can keep him asleep.”

Harry handed the flute over to Hermione. In the few seconds' silence, the dog growled and twitched, but the moment she began to play, it fell back into its deep sleep.

Harry climbed over it and looked down through the trapdoor. There was no sign of the bottom.

He lowered himself through the hole until he was hanging on by his fingertips. Then he looked up at Ron and Draco and said, “If anything happens to me, don't follow. Go straight to the owlery and send Hedwig to Dumbledore, right?”

“Right,” said Ron and Draco together.

“See you in a minute, I hope...”

And Harry let go. Cold, damp air rushed past him as he fell down, down, down, and—

FLUMP. With a funny, muffled sort of thump, he landed on something soft. He sat up and felt around, his eyes not used to the gloom. It felt as though he was sitting on some sort of plant.

“It's okay!” he called up to the light the size of a postage stamp, which was the open trapdoor, “it's a soft landing, you can jump!”

Ron and Draco followed right away, one right after the other. Ron landed sprawled next to Harry, and Draco landed a bit further away, bouncing on his knees.

“What's this stuff?” Ron asked.

“Dunno, some sort of plant thing. I suppose it's here to break the fall. Come on, Hermione!”

The distant music stopped. There was a loud bark from the dog, but Hermione had already jumped. She landed on Harry's other side.

“We must be miles under the school,” she said.

“Lucky this plan thing's here, really,” said Draco.

“ _Lucky?_ ” she shrieked. “Look at you all!”

She leapt up and struggled toward a damp wall. She had to struggle because the moment she had landed, the plant had started to twist snakelike tendrils around her ankles. As for Harry, Draco, and Ron, their legs had already been bound tightly in long creepers without their noticing.

Hermione had managed to free herself before the plant got a firm grip on her. Now she watched in horror as the boys fought to pull the plant off them, but the more they strained against it, the tighter and faster the plant wound around them.

“Stop moving!” Hermione ordered them. “I know what this is—it's Devil's Snare!”

“Oh, I'm so glad we know what it's called, that's a great help,” snarled Ron, leaning back, trying to stop the plant from curling around his neck.

“Shut up, I'm trying to remember how to kill it!” said Hermione.

“Well, hurry up, I can't breathe!” Harry gasped, wrestling with it as it curled around his chest.

“Devil's Snare, Devil's Snare... what did Professor Sprout say?—it likes the dark and the damp—”

“So light a fire!” Harry choked.

“Yes—of course—but there's no wood!” Hermione cried, wringing her hands.

“HAVE YOU GONE MAD?” Draco bellowed. “ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?”

“Oh, right!” said Hermione, and she whipped out her wand, waved it, muttered something, and sent a jet of the same bluebell flames she had used on Snape at the plant. In a matter of seconds, the three boys felt it loosening its grip as it cringed away from the light and warmth. Wriggling and flailing, it unraveled itself from their bodies, and they were able to pull free.

“Lucky you pay attention in Herbology, Hermione,” said Harry as he joined her by the wall, wiping sweat off his face.

“Yeah,” said Ron, “and lucky Draco doesn't lose his head in a crisis—'there's no wood,' _honestly_.”

“This way,” said Harry, pointing down a stone passageway, which was the only way forward.

All they could hear apart from their footsteps was the gentle drip of water trickling down the walls. The passageway sloped downward, and Harry was reminded of Gringotts. With an unpleasant jolt of the heart, he remembered the dragons said to be guarding the vaults in the wizards' bank. If they met a dragon, a fully-grown dragon—Norbert had been bad enough...

“Can you hear something?” Ron whispered.

Harry listened. A soft rustling and clinking seemed to be coming from up ahead.

“Do you think it's a ghost?”

“I don't know... it sounds like wings to me,” Draco murmured.

“There's light ahead—I can see something moving."

They reached the end of the passageway and saw before them a brilliantly-lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above them. It was full of small, jewel-bright birds, fluttering and tumbling all around the room. On the opposite side of the chamber was a heavy wooden door.

“Do you think they'll attack us if we cross the room?”

“Probably,” said Harry. “They don't look very vicious, but I suppose if they all swooped down at once... well, there's no other choice... I'll run.”

He took a deep breath, covered his face with his arms, and sprinted across the room. He expected to feel sharp beaks and claws tearing at him any second, but nothing happened. He reached the door untouched. He pulled the handle, but it was locked.

The other three followed him. They tugged and heaved at the door, but it wouldn't budge, not even when Hermione tried her Alohomora Charm.

“Now what?” said Draco.

“These birds... they can't just be here for decoration,” said Hermione.

They watched the birds soaring overhead, glittering— _glittering_?

“They're not birds!” Harry said suddenly. “They're _keys_! Winged keys—look carefully. So that must mean...” He looked around the chamber while the other three squinted up at the flock of keys. “...yes—look! Broomsticks! We've got to catch the key to the door!”

“But there are _hundreds_ of them!”

Ron examined the lock on the door.

“We're looking for a big, old-fashioned one—probably silver, like the handle.”

They each seized a broomstick and kicked off into the air, soaring into the midst of the cloud of keys. They grabbed and snatched, but the bewitched keys darted and dived so quickly it was almost impossible to catch one.

Not for nothing, though, was Harry the youngest Seeker in a century. He had a knack for spotting things other people didn't. After a minute's weaving about through the whirl of rainbow feathers, he noticed a large silver key that had a bent wing, as if it had already been caught and stuffed roughly into the keyhole.

“That one!” he called to the others. “That big one—there—no, there—with bright blue wings—the feathers are all crumpled on one side.”

Ron went speeding in the direction that Harry was pointing, crashed into the ceiling, and nearly fell off his broom.

“We've got to close in on it!” Harry called, not taking his eyes off the key with the damaged wing. “Ron, you come at it from above—Hermione, stay below and stop it from going down—Draco, you go over to the other side there—and I'll try and catch it. Right, NOW!”

Ron dived, Hermione rocketed upward, Draco streaked across, and the key dodged them all—although Harry noticed that Draco's fingers managed to skim its wings; Harry charged after it as it sped toward the wall, he leaned forward and with a nasty, crunching noise, pinned it against the stone with one hand. The other three's cheers echoed around the high chamber.

They landed quickly, and Harry ran to the door, the key struggling in his hand. He rammed it into the lock and turned—it worked. The moment the lock had clicked open, the key took flight again, looking very battered now that it had been caught twice.

“Ready?” Harry asked the other three, his hand on the door handle. They nodded. He pulled the door open.

“You almost had it there,” he added to Draco as he closed the door behind them. “You might make a good Seeker.”

“I was going to try out for the team next year,” Draco said. There was a small smile on his face. “Chaser spot's opening up.”

The next chamber was so dark they couldn't see anything at all. But as they stepped into it, light suddenly flooded the room to reveal an astonishing sight.

They were standing on the edge of a huge chessboard, behind the black chessmen, which were all taller than they were and carved from what look like black stone. Facing them, way across the chamber, were the white pieces. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Draco all shivered slightly—the towering white chessmen had no faces.

“Now what do we do?” Harry whispered.

“It's obvious, isn't it?” said Ron. “We've got to play our way across the room.”

Behind the white pieces they could see another door.

“How?” said Hermione nervously.

“I think,” said Ron, “we're going to have to be chessmen.”

He walked up to a black knight and put his hand out to touch the knight's horse. At once, the stone sprang to life. The horse pawed the ground and the knight turned his helmeted head to look down at Ron.

“Do we—er—have to join you to get across?”

The black knight nodded. Ron turned to the other three.

“This needs thinking about...” he said. “I suppose we've got to take the place of four of the black pieces...”

They stayed quiet, watching Ron think. Finally, he said, “Now, don't be offended or anything, but none of you are that good at chess—”

“We're not offended,” said Harry quickly. “Just tell us what to do.”

“Well, Harry, you take the place of that bishop, Draco, you take the other, and Hermione, you go there instead of that castle.”

“What about you?”

“I'm going to be a knight,” said Ron.

The chessmen seemed to have been listening, because at these words, a knight, two bishops, and a castle turned their backs on the white pieces and walked off the board, leaving four empty squares that Harry, Draco, Ron, and Hermione took.

“White always plays first in chess,” said Ron, peering across the board. “Yes... look...”

A white pawn had moved forward two squares.

Ron started to direct the black pieces. They moved silently wherever he sent them. Harry's knees were trembling. What if they lost?

“Harry—move diagonally four squares to the right.”

Their first real shock came when their other knight was taken. The white queen smashed him to the floor and dragged him off the board, where he lay quite still, facedown.

“Had to let that happen,” said Ron, looking shaken. “Leaves you free to take that bishop, Hermione, go on.”

Every time one of their men was lost, the white pieces showed no mercy. Soon there was a huddle of limp black players slumped along the wall. Several times, Ron only just noticed that one of them was in danger. He himself darted around the board, taking almost as many white pieces as they had lost black ones.

“We're nearly there,” he muttered suddenly. “Let me think—let me think...”

The white queen turned her blank face toward him.

“Yes...” said Ron softly, “it's the only way... I've got to be taken.”

“NO!” Harry, Hermione, and Draco shouted.

“That's chess!” snapped Ron. “You've got to make some sacrifices! I'll make my move and she'll take me—that leaves you free to checkmate the king, Harry!”

“But—”

“Do you want to stop Snape or not?”

“Ron—”

“Look, if you don't hurry up, he'll already have the Stone!”

There was no alternative.

“Ready?” Ron called, his face ashen but determined. “Here I go—now, don't hang around once you've won.”

He stepped forward, and the white queen pounced. She struck Ron hard across the head with her stone arm, and he crashed to the floor—Hermione screamed but stayed on her square—Draco was covering his eyes with his hands—the white queen dragged Ron to one side. He looked as if he'd been knocked out.

Shaking, Harry moved three spaces to the left.

The white king took off his crown and threw it at Harry's feet. They had won. The chessmen parted and bowed, leaving the door ahead clear.

“I'll—” Draco started in a small voice.

Harry and Hermione turned to look at him.

“I'll stay with Ron, make sure he's okay. I mean... there's only three rooms left, right? Hagrid, Sprout, Flitwick—this was McGonagall—then there's Snape and Quirrell, and Dumbledore's is last. Really, Hermione's the one you probably want with you.”

Harry and Hermione exchanged glances.

“He's got a point,” said Hermione slowly.

“Go on—before Snape gets the Stone.” Draco nodded reassuringly and started off toward Ron.

With one last look at them, Harry and Hermione charged through the door and up the next passageway.

“What if he's—?”

“He'll be alright. Draco's with him,” said Harry, trying to convince himself. “What do you reckon's next?”

“Not sure about Quirrell, but Snape's will be really vile, I'm sure.”

They had reached another door.

“All right?” Harry whispered.

“Go on.”

Harry pushed it open.

A disgusting smell filled their nostrils, making both of them pull their robes up over their noses. Eyes watering, they saw, flat on the floor in front of them, a troll even larger than the one they had tackled, out cold with a bloody lump on its head.

“I'm glad we didn't have to fight that one,” Harry whispered as they stepped carefully over one of its massive legs. “Come on, I can't breathe.”

He pulled open the next door, both of them hardly daring to look at what came next—but there was nothing very frightening in here, just a table with seven differently shaped bottles standing in a line.

“Snape's,” said Harry. “Which means the troll was Quirrell's. What do we have to do?”

They stepped over the threshold, and immediately a fire sprang up behind them in the doorway. It wasn't ordinary fire, either; it was purple. At the same instant, black flames shot up in the doorway leading onward. They were trapped.

“Look!” Hermione seized a roll of paper lying next to the bottles. Harry looked over her shoulder to read it:

 

_Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,_

_Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,_

_One among us seven will let you move ahead,_

_Another will transport the drinker back instead,_

_Two among our number hold only nettle wine,_

_Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line._

_Choose, unless you wish to stay here forever more,_

_To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:_

_First, however slyly the poison tries to hide_

_You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;_

_Second, different are those who stand on either end,_

_But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;_

_Third, as you see clearly, are all of different size,_

_Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;_

_Fourth, the second left and the second on the right_

_Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight._

 

Hermione let out a great sigh and Harry, amazed, saw that she was smiling, the very last thing he felt like doing.

“ _Brilliant_ ,” said Hermione. “This isn't magic—it's logic—a puzzle. A lot of the greatest wizards haven't got an ounce of logic, they'd be stuck in here forever.”

“But so will we, won't we?”

“Of course not,” said Hermione. “Everything we need is here on this paper. Seven bottles: three are poison; two are wine; one will get us safely through the black fire; and one will get us back through the purple.”

“But how do we know which to drink?”

“Give me a minute.”

Hermione read the paper several times. Then she walked up and down the line of bottles, muttering to herself and pointing at them. At last, she clapped her hands.

“Got it,” she said. “The smallest bottle will get us through the black fire—toward the Stone.”

Harry looked at the tiny bottle.

“There's only enough for one of us,” he said. “That's hardly one swallow.”

They looked at each other.

“Which one will get you back through the purple flames?”

Hermione pointed at a rounded bottle at the right end of the line.

“You drink that,” said Harry. “No, listen, get back and get Ron and Draco. Grab brooms from the flying-key room, they'll get you out of the trapdoor and past Fluffy—go straight to the owlery and send Hedwig to Dumbledore, we need him. I might be able to hold Snape off for awhile, but I'm no match for him, really.”

“But Harry—what if You-Know-Who's with him?”

“Well—I was lucky once, wasn't I?” said Harry, pointing at his scar. “I might get lucky again.”

Hermione's lip trembled, and she suddenly dashed at Harry and threw her arms around him.

“ _Hermione!”_

“Harry—you're a great wizard, you know.”

“I'm not as good as you,” said Harry, very embarrassed, as she let go of him.

“Me!” said Hermione. “Books! And cleverness! There are more important things—friendship and bravery and—oh Harry—be _careful_!”

“You drink first,” said Harry. “You are sure which is which, aren't you?”

“Positive,” said Hermione. She took a long drink from the round bottle at the end, and shuddered.

“It's not poison?” said Harry anxiously.

“No—but it's like ice.”

“Quick, go, before it wears off.”

“Good luck—take care—”

“GO!”

Hermione turned and walked straight through the purple fire.

Harry took a deep breath and picked up the smallest bottle. He turned to face the black flames.

“Here I come,” he said, and he drained the little bottle in one gulp.

It was indeed as though ice was flooding in his body. He put the bottle down and walked forward; he braced himself, saw the black flames licking his body, but he couldn't feel them—for a moment he could see nothing but the dark fire—then he was on the other side, in the last chamber.

There was already someone there—but it wasn't Snape. It wasn't even Voldemort.

 


	12. XII

It was Quirrell.

“ _You!_ ” gasped Harry.

Quirrell smiled. His face wasn't twitching at all.

“Me,” he said calmly. “I wondered whether I'd be meeting you here, Potter.”

“But I thought—Snape—”

“Severus?” Quirrell laughed, and it wasn't his usual quivering treble, either, but cold and sharp. “Yes, Severus does seem the type, doesn't he? So useful to have him swooping around like an overgrown bat. Next to him, who would suspect p-p-poor, st-stuttering P-Professor Quirrell?”

Harry couldn't take it in. This couldn't be true, it couldn't.

“But Snape tried to kill me!”

“No, no, no. _I_ tried to kill you. Your friend Miss Granger accidentally knocked me over as she rushed to set fire to Snape at that Quidditch match. She broke my eye contact with you. Another few seconds and I'd have got you off that broom. I'd have managed it before then if Snape hadn't been muttering a countercurse, trying to save you.”

“Snape was trying to _save_ me?”

“Of course,” said Quirrell coolly. “He asked Minerva to referee your next match, and then he sat right next to me. He was trying to make sure I didn't do it again. Funny, really... they needn't have bothered. I couldn't do anything with Dumbledore watching. And what a waste of time, when after all that, I'm going to kill you tonight.”

Quirrell snapped his fingers. Ropes sprang out of thin air and wrapped themselves tightly around Harry.

“You're too nosy to live, Potter. Scurrying around the school on Halloween like that, for all I knew you'd seen me coming to look at what was guarding the Stone.”

“ _You_ let the troll in?”

“Certainly. I have a special gift with trolls—you must have seen what I did to the one in the chamber back there? Unfortunately, while everyone else was running around looking for it, Snape, who already suspected me, went straight to the third floor to head me off—and not only did my troll fail to beat you to death, that three-headed dog didn't even manage to bite Snape's leg off properly.

“Now, wait quietly, Potter. I need to examine this interesting mirror.”

It was only then that Harry realized what was standing behind Quirrell. It was the Mirror of Erised.

“This mirror is the key to finding the Stone,” Quirrell murmured, tapping his way around the frame. “Trust Dumbledore to come up with something like this... but he's in London... I'll be far away by the time he gets back....”

All Harry could think of doing was to keep Quirrell busy and stop him from concentrating on the mirror.

“I saw you and Snape in the forest—” he blurted out.

“Yes,” said Quirrell idly, walking around the mirror to look at the back. “He was on to me by that time, trying to figure out how far I'd got. He suspected me all along. Tried to frighten me—as though he could, when I had Lord Voldemort on my side....”

Quirrell came back out from behind the mirror and stared hungrily into it.

“I see the Stone... I'm presenting it to my master... but where is it?”

Harry struggled against the ropes binding him, but they didn't give. He _had_ to keep Quirrell from giving his full attention to the mirror.

“But Snape always seemed to hate me so much.”

“Oh, he does,” said Quirrell casually, “heavens, yes. He was at Hogwarts with your father, didn't you know? They loathed each other—ironic that you ended up in Snape's very own House. But he never wanted you _dead_.”

“But I heard you a few days ago, sobbing—I thought Snape was threatening you....”

For the first time, a spasm of fear flitted across Quirrell's face.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I find it hard to follow my master's instructions—he is a great wizard and I am weak—”

“You mean he was there in the classroom with you?” Harry gasped.

“He is with me wherever I go,” said Quirrell quietly. “I met him when I traveled around the world. A foolish young man I was then, full of ridiculous ideas about good and evil. Lord Voldemort showed me how wrong I was. There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.... Since then, I have served him faithfully, although I have let him down many times. He has had to be very hard on me.” Quirrell shivered suddenly. “He does not forgive mistakes easily. When I failed to steal the Stone from Gringotts, he was most displeased. He punished me... decided he would have to keep a closer watch on me...”

Quirrell's voice trailed away. Harry was remembering his trip to Diagon Alley—how could he have been so stupid? He'd _seen_ Quirrell there that very day, shaken hands with him in the Leaky Cauldron.

Quirrell cursed under his breath.

“I don't understand... is the Stone _inside_ the mirror? Should I break it?”

Harry's mind was racing.

 _What I want more than anything else in the world at the moment,_ he thought, _is to find the Stone before Quirrell does. So if I look in the mirror, I should see myself finding it—which means I'll see where it's hidden! But how can I look without Quirrell realizing what I'm up to?_

He tried to edge to the left, to get in front of the glass without Quirrell noticing, but the ropes around his ankles were too tight: he tripped and fell over. Quirrell ignored him. He was still talking to himself.

“What does this mirror do? How does it work? Help me, Master!”

And to Harry's horror, a voice answered, and the voice seemed to be coming from Quirrell himself.

“Use the boy... Use the boy...”

Quirrell rounded on Harry.

“Yes—Potter—come here.”

He clapped his hands once, and the ropes binding Harry fell off. Harry got slowly to his feet.

“Come here,” Quirrell repeated. “Look in the mirror and tell me what you see.”

Harry walked toward him.

 _I must lie_ , he thought desperately. _I must look and lie about what I see, that's all._

Quirrell moved close behind him. Harry breathed in the funny smell that seemed to come from Quirrell's turban. He closed his eyes, stepped in front of the mirror, and opened them again.

He saw his reflection, ashen and scared-looking at first. But a moment later, the reflection smiled at him. It put its hand into its pocket and pulled out a blood-red stone. It winked and put the stone back into its pocket—and as it did so, Harry felt something heavy drop into his real pocket. Somehow—incredibly— _he'd gotten the Stone._

“Well?” said Quirrell impatiently. “What do you see?”

Harry screwed up his courage.

“I see myself shaking hands with Dumbledore,” he invented. “I—I've won the House Cup for Slytherin.”

Quirrell cursed again.

“Get out of the way,” he said. As Harry moved aside, he felt the Sorcerer's Stone against his leg. Dare he make a break for it?

But he hadn't walked five paces before a high voice spoke, though Quirrell wasn't moving his lips.

“He lies... He lies...”

“Potter, come back here!” Quirrell shouted. “Tell me the truth! What did you just see?”

The high voice spoke again.

“Let me speak to him... face-to-face...”

“Master, you are not strong enough!”

“I have strength enough... for this...”

Harry felt as if Devil's Snare was rooting him to the spot. He couldn't move a muscle. Petrified, he watched as Quirrell reached up and began to unwrap his turban. What was going on? The turban fell away. Quirrell's head looked strangely small without it. Then he turned slowly on the spot.

Harry would have screamed, but he couldn't make a sound. Where there should have been a back to Quirrell's head, there was instead a face, the most terrible face Harry had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake.

“Harry Potter...” it whispered.

Harry tried to take a step backward but his legs wouldn't move.

“See what I have become?” the face said. “Mere shadow and vapor... I have form only when I can share another's body... but there have always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds... Unicorn blood has strengthened me, these past weeks... you saw faithful Quirrell drinking it for me in the forest... and once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to create a body of my own... Now... why don't you give me that Stone in your pocket?”

So he knew. The feeling suddenly surged back into Harry's legs. He stumbled backward.

“Don't be a fool,” snarled the face. “Better save your own life and join me... or you'll meet the same end as your parents... They died begging me for mercy....”

“LIAR!” Harry shouted suddenly.

Quirrell was walking backward at him, so that Voldemort could still see him. The evil face was now smiling.

“How touching...” it hissed. “I always value bravery... Yes, boy, your parents were brave... I killed your father first, and he put up a courageous fight... bur your mother needn't have died... she was trying to protect you... Now give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain.”

“NEVER!”

Harry sprang toward the flame door, but Voldemort screamed, “SEIZE HIM!” and the next second, Harry felt Quirrell's hand close on his wrist. At once, a needle-sharp pain seared across Harry's scar; his head felt as though it was about to split in two; he yelled, struggling with all his might, and to his surprise, Quirrell let go of him. The pain in his head lessened—he looked around wildly to see where Quirrell had gone, and saw him hunched in pain, looking at his fingers—they were blistering before his eyes.

“Seize him! SEIZE HIM!” shrieked Voldemort again, and Quirrell lunged, knocking Harry clean off his feet, landing on top of him, both hands around Harry's neck—Harry's scar was almost blinding him with pain, yet he could see Quirrell was howling in agony.

“Master, I cannot hold him—my hands—my hands!”

And Quirrell, though pinning Harry to the ground with his knees, let go of his neck and stared, bewildered, at his own palms—Harry could see they looked burned, raw, red, and shiny.

“Then kill him, fool, and be done!” screeched Voldemort.

Quirrell raised his hand to perform a deadly curse, but Harry, by instinct, reached up and grabbed Quirrell's face—

“AAAARGH!”

Quirrell rolled off him, his face blistering, too, and then Harry knew: Quirrell couldn't touch his bare skin, not without suffering terrible pain—his only chance was to keep hold of Quirrell, keep him in enough pain to stop him from doing a curse.

Harry jumped to his feet, caught Quirrell by the arm, and hung on as tight as he could. Quirrell screamed and tried to throw Harry off—the pain in Harry's head was building—he couldn't see—he could only hear Quirrell's terrible shrieks and Voldemort's yells of, “KILL HIM! KILL HIM!” and other voices, maybe in Harry's own head, crying, “Harry! Harry!”

He felt Quirrell's arm wrenched away from his grasp, knew all was lost, and fell into blackness, down... down... down...

 

Something gold was glinting just above him. The Snitch! He tried to catch it, but his arms were too heavy.

He blinked. It wasn't the Snitch at all. It was a pair of glasses. How strange.

He blinked again. The smiling face of Albus Dumbledore swam into view above him.

“Good afternoon, Harry,” said Dumbledore.

Harry stared at him. Then he remembered: “Sir! The Stone! It was Quirrell! He's got the Stone! Sir, quick—”

“Calm yourself, dear boy, you are a little behind the times,” said Dumbledore. “Quirrell does not have the Stone.”

“Then who does? Sir, I—”

“Harry, please relax, or Madam Pomfrey will have me thrown out.”

Harry swallowed and looked around him. He realized he must be in the hospital wing. He was lying in a bed with white linen sheets, and next to him was a tabled piled high with what looked like half the candy shop.

“Tokens from your friends and admirers,” said Dumbledore, beaming. “What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows. I believe your friends Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a toilet seat. No doubt they thought it would amuse you. Madam Pomfrey, however, felt it might not be very hygienic, and confiscated it.”

“How long have I been in here?”

“Three days. Miss Granger and Misters Ronald Weasley and Malfoy will be most relieved you have come around, they have been extremely worried.”

“But sir, the Stone—”

“I see you are not to be distracted. Very well, the Stone. Professor Quirrell did not manage to take it from you. I arrived in time to prevent that, although you were doing very well on your own, I must say.”

“You got there? You got Hermione's owl?”

“We must have crossed in midair. No sooner had I reached London than it became clear to me that the place I should be was the one I had just left. I arrived just in time to pull Quirrell off you—”

“It was _you_.”

“I feared I might be too late.”

“You nearly were, I couldn't have kept him off the Stone much longer—”

“Not the Stone, boy, you—the effort involved nearly killed you. For one terrible moment there, I was afraid it had. As for the Stone, it has been destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” said Harry, blankly. “But your friend—Nicolas Flamel—”

“Oh, you know about Nicolas?” said Dumbledore, sounding quite delighted. “You _did_ do the thing properly, didn't you? Well, Nicolas and I have had a little chat, and agreed it's all for the best.”

“But that means he and his wife will die, won't they?”

“They have enough Elixir stored to set their affairs in order and then yes, they will die.”

Dumbledore smiled at the look of amazement on Harry's face.

“To one as young as you, I'm sure it seems incredible, but to Nicolas and Perenelle, it really is like going to bed after a very, _very_ long day. You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all—the trouble is, humans do have a knack for choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.”

Harry lay there, lost for words. Dumbledore hummed a little and smiled at the ceiling.

“Sir?” said Harry. “I've been thinking... Sir—even if the Stone's gone, Vol—I mean, You-Kn0w-Who—”

“Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”

“Yes, sir. Well, Voldemort's going to try other ways of coming back, isn't he? I mean, he hasn't gone, has he?”

“No, Harry, he has not. He is still out there somewhere, perhaps looking for another body to share... not being truly alive, he cannot be killed. He left Quirrell to die; he shows just as little mercy to his followers as his enemies. Nevertheless, Harry, while you may have only delayed his return to power, it will merely take someone else who is prepared to fight what seems a losing battle next time—and if he is delayed again, and again, why, he may never return to power.”

Harry nodded, but stopped quickly, because it made his head hurt. Then he said, “Sir, there are some other things I'd like to know, if you can tell me... things I want to know the truth about....”

“The truth.” Dumbledore sighed. “It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution. However, I shall answer your questions unless I have a very good reason not to, in which case I beg you'll forgive me. I shall not, of course, lie.”

“Well... Voldemort said that he only killed my mother because she tried to stop him from killing me. But why would he want to kill me in the first place?”

Dumbledore sighed very deeply this time.

“Alas, the first thing you ask me, I cannot tell you. Not today. Not now. You will know, one day... put it from your mind for now, Harry. When you are older... I know you hate to hear this... when you are ready, you will know.”

And Harry knew it would be no good to argue.

“But why couldn't Quirrell touch me?”

“Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign... to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good.”

Dumbledore now became very interested in a bird out on the windowsill, which gave Harry time to dry his eyes on the sheet. When he had found his voice again, Harry said, “And the Invisibility Cloak—do you know who sent it to me?”

“Ah—your father happened to leave it in my possession, and I thought you might like it.” Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. “Useful things... your father used it mainly for sneaking off to the kitchens to steal food when he was here.”

“And there's something else...”

“Fire away.”

“Quirrell said Snape—”

“ _Professor_ Snape, Harry.”

“Yes, him—Quirrell said he hates me because he hated my father. Is that true?”

“Well, they did rather detest each other. Not unlike yourself and Mr. Zabini, although they had the good fortune not to be in the same House. And then, your father did something Professor Snape could never forgive.”

“What?”

“He saved his life.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Yes...” said Dumbledore dreamily. “Funny, the way people's minds work, isn't it? Professor Snape couldn't bear to be in your father's debt... I do believe he worked so hard to protect you this year because he felt that would make him and your father even. Then he could go back to hating your father's memory in peace....”

Harry tried to understand this but it made his head pound, so he stopped.

“And sir, there's one more thing?”

“Just the one?”

“How did I get the Stone out of the mirror?”

“Ah, now, I'm glad you asked me that. It was one of my more brilliant ideas, and between you and me, that's saying something. You see, only one who wanted to _find_ the Stone—find it, but not use it—would be able to get it, otherwise they'd just see themselves making gold or drinking Elixir of Life. My brain surprises even me sometimes.... Now, enough questions. I suggest you make a start on these sweets. Ah! Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans! I was unfortunate enough in my youth to come across a vomit-flavored one, and since then I'm afraid I've rather lost my liking for them—but I think I'll be safe with a nice toffee, don't you?”

He smiled and popped the golden-brown bean into his mouth. Then he choked and said, “Alas! Ear wax!”

 

Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, was a nice woman, but very strict.

“Just five minutes,” Harry pleaded.

“Absolutely not.”

“You let Professor Dumbledore in....”

“Well, of course, that was the headmaster, quite different. You need _rest_.”

“I am resting, look, lying down and everything. Oh, go on, Madam Pomfrey...”

“Oh, very well,” she said. “But five minutes _only_.”

And she let Draco, Ron, and Hermione in.

“ _Harry!_ ”

Hermione looked ready to fling her arms around him again, but Harry was glad she held herself as his head was still very sore.

“Oh, Harry, we were sure you were going to—Dumbledore was so worried—”

“The whole school's talking about it,” said Ron. “What _really_ happened?”

It was one of those rare occasions when the true story is even more strange and exciting than the wild rumors. Harry told them everything: Quirrell; the mirror; the Stone; and Voldemort. The three of them were a very good audience; they gasped in the right places, and when Harry told them what was under Quirrell's turban, Hermione screamed out loud.

“So the Stone's gone?” said Ron finally. “Flamel's just going to _die_?”

“That's what I said, but Dumbledore thinks that—what was it?—'to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.'”

“I always said he was off his rocker,” said Ron, looking quite impressed at his crazy his hero was.

“So what happened with you three?” said Harry.

“Well, I got back all right,” said Hermione. “And Draco had just gotten Ron round—”

“That took awhile,” Draco admitted.

“—and we were dashing up to the owlery to contact Dumbledore when we met him in the entrance hall—he already knew—he just said, 'Harry's gone after him, hasn't he?' and hurtled off to the third floor.”

“D'you think he meant you to do it?” said Ron. “Sending you your father's Cloak and everything?”

“ _Well_ ,” Hermione exploded, “if he did—I mean to say—that's terrible—you could have been killed.”

“No, it isn't,” said Harry thoughtfully. “He's a funny man, Dumbledore. I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance. I think he knows more or less everything that goes on here, you know. I reckon he had a pretty good idea we were going to try, and instead of stopping us, he just taught us enough to help. I don't think it was an accident he let me find out how the mirror worked. It's almost like he thought I had the right to face Voldemort if I could....”

“Yeah, Dumbledore's off his rocker, all right,” said Draco.

“Listen,” Ron said, “you've got to be up for the end-of-year feast tomorrow. The points are all in and Gryffindor won, surprising no one—you missed the last match, Slytherin was steamrolled by Ravenclaw without you—but the food'll be good.”

At that moment, Madam Pomfrey bustled over.

“You've had nearly fifteen minutes, now OUT,” she said firmly.

 

After a good night's sleep, Harry felt nearly back to normal.

“I want to go to the feast,” he told Madam Pomfrey as she straightened his many candy boxes. “I can, can't I?”

“Professor Dumbledore says you are allowed to go,” she said sniffily, as though in her opinion Professor Dumbledore didn't realize how risky feasts could be. “And you have another visitor.”

“Oh, good,” said Harry. “Who is it?”

Hagrid sidled through the door as he spoke. As usual when he was indoors, Hagrid looked too big to be allowed. He sat down next to Harry, took one look at him, and burst into tears.

“It's—all—my—ruddy—fault!” he sobbed, his face in his hands. “I told that evil git how ter get past Fluffy! I told him! It was the only thing he didn't know, an' I told him! Yeh could've died! All fer a dragon egg! I'll never drink again! I should be chucked out an' made ter live as a Muggle!”

“Hagrid!” said Harry, shocked to see Hagrid shaking with grief and remorse, great tears leaking down into his beard. “Hagrid, he'd have found out somehow, this is Voldemort we're talking about, he'd have found out even if you hadn't told him.”

“Yeh could've died!” sobbed Hagrid. “An' don' say the name!”

“VOLDEMORT!” Harry bellowed, and Hagrid was so shocked, he stopped crying. “I've met him and I'm calling him by his name. Please cheer up, Hagrid, we saved the Stone, it's gone, he can't use it. Here, have a Chocolate Frog, I've got loads....”

Hagrid wiped his nose on the back of his hand and said, “That reminds me. I've got yeh a present.”

“It's not a stoat sandwich, is it?” said Harry anxiously, and at last Hagrid gave a weak chuckle.

“Nah. Dumbledore gave me the day off yesterday ter fix it. 'Course, he shoulda sacked me instead—anyway, got yeh this...”

It seemed to be a handsome, leather-covered book. Harry opened it curiously. It was full of wizard photographs. Smiling and waving at him from every page were his mother and father.

“Sent owls off ter all yer parents' old school friends, askin' fer photos... knew yeh didn't have any... d'yeh like it?”

Harry couldn't speak, but Hagrid understood.

 

Harry made his way down to the end-of-term feast alone that night. He had been held up by Madam Pomfrey's fussing about, insisting on giving him one last checkup, so the Great Hall was already full. It was decked out in the Gryffindor colors of red and gold to celebrate Gryffindor's winning of the House Cup again. A huge banner showing the Gryffindor lion covered the wall behind the High Table.

When Harry walked in there was a sudden hush, and then everyone started talking loudly at once. He slipped into a seat between Draco and Percy and the Slytherin table and tried to ignore the fact that people were standing up to look at him.

Fortunately, Dumbledore arrived moments later. The babble died away.

“Another year gone!” Dumbledore said cheerfully. “And I must trouble you with an old man's wheezing waffle before we sink our teeth into our delicious feast. What a year it has been! Hopefully your heads are all a little fuller than they were... you have the whole summer ahead to get them nice and empty before next year starts...

“Now, as I understand it, the House Cup here needs awarding, and the points stand thus: In fourth place, Slytherin, with three hundred and seventy-three points; in third, Ravenclaw, with three hundred and eighty-two; Hufflepuff has four hundred and seventeen; and Gryffindor, four hundred and sixty-six.”

A storm of cheering and stamping broke out from the Gryffindor table. Harry knew it wasn't important in the grand scheme of things, but he wondered what it felt like to be in the winning House.

“Yes, yes, well done, Gryffindor,” said Dumbledore. “However, recent events must be taken into account.”

The room went very still. The Gryffindors' smiles faded a little.

“Ahem,” said Dumbledore. “I have a few last-minute points to dish out. Let me see. Yes...

“First—to Mr. Ronald Weasley...”

Ron went purple in the face; he looked like a flaming radish.

“...for the best-played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years, I award Hufflepuff House fifty points.”

The Hufflepuff table erupted into shouts and cheers—those fifty points had catapulted them into first place by a lone point. Even Percy and the twins, despite not being in his House, applauded with the Hufflepuffs. “My brother, you know!” Percy said proudly to anyone who would listen. “My youngest brother! Got past McGonagall's giant chess set!”

At last there was silence again.

“Second, to Miss Hermione Granger... for the use of cool logic in the face of fire, I award Ravenclaw House fifty points.”

It wasn't quite good enough for second, but the Ravenclaws cheered and applauded anyway. Hermione buried her face in her arms; Harry strongly suspected she had burst into tears.

“Third, to Mr. Draco Malfoy... for outstanding compassion and cooperation, I award Slytherin House fifty points.”

Suddenly, the Slytherin table was roaring; Harry thumped Draco on the back, and Draco's normally-pale face was flushed with emotion. Slytherin was now up to four hundred and twenty-three points, squarely into third place.

“And finally, to Mr. Harry Potter...” said Dumbledore. The Hall went deadly quiet. “...for pure nerve and outstanding courage, I award Slytherin House sixty points.”

It felt like an explosion had rocked the Slytherin table. Those who could do math while cheering giddily announced the new score: four hundred and eighty-three points to Slytherin, landing them in _first place_. The Gryffindors looked stunned, but Harry could barely see through the mass of green that surrounded him.

“Which means,” Dumbledore called over the storm of applause, “we need a little change of decoration.”

He clapped his hands. In an instant, the scarlet hangings became green and the gold became silver; the huge Gryffindor lion vanished and a towering Slytherin serpent took its place. Professor McGonagall was shaking Snape's hand with a tight, resigned smile. He caught Harry's eye as he went to sit back down and he knew all at once that Snape's feelings toward him hadn't changed one jot. This didn't worry Harry. It seemed as though life would be back to normal next year, or as normal as it ever was at Hogwarts.

It was the best evening of Harry's life, better than winning at Quidditch, or Christmas, or knocking out mountain trolls... he would never, ever forget tonight.

 

Harry had almost forgotten that the exam results were still to come, but come they did. To their great surprise, both he and Ron had passed with good marks; Hermione, of course, had the best grades of the first years, but they were more surprised to see that Draco had been second. Even Neville Longbottom had scraped through, his good Herbology mark making up for his abysmal Potions one. They had hoped that Goyle, who was almost as stupid as he was mean, might be thrown out, but he had passed, too. It was a shame, but as Ron said, you couldn't have everything in life.

And suddenly, their wardrobes were empty, their trunks were packed, Neville's toad was found lurking in a corner of the toilets; notes were handed out to all the students, warning them not to use magic over the holidays (“I always hope they'll forget to give us these,” Harry overheard Fred Weasley say sadly); Hagrid was there to take them down to the fleet of boats that sailed them across the lake; they were boarding the Hogwarts Express; talking and laughing as the countryside became greener and tidier; eating Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans as they sped past Muggle towns; pulling off their wizard robes and putting on jackets and coats; pulling up to platform nine and three-quarters at King's Cross station.

It took quite awhile for them all to get off the platform. A wizened old guard was up by the ticket barrier, letting them all go through in twos and threes so they didn't attract attention by all bursting out of a solid wall at once and alarming the Muggles.

“You must come stay this summer,” said Ron, “all of—well,” he added with a glance at Draco, “maybe not _you_ , but Harry and Hermione, for sure. I'll send you an owl.”

“Why not Draco?” Hermione asked, slightly affronted.

“Our families don't get along either,” Draco said, sound sheepish. “In fact, if my father knew who I was friends with, he might not let me come back to Hogwarts next year, so let's try to keep it down, shall we?”

“He can't be all _that_ bad, can he?” Harry asked, but both Ron and Draco looked at him like they weren't sure if he was joking or not.

“No, he is,” Ron said finally.

“I'll explain next year. Have fun, you lot. I'll write if I think I can get away with it.” Draco waved and wheeled his cart through the barrier.

“Right,” Harry murmured, trying to figure out how the Malfoys could be so bad. “I'll need something to look forward to."

People jostled them as they moved forward. Some of them called:

“Bye, Harry!”

“See you, Potter!”

“Still famous,” said Ron, grinning at him.

“Not where I'm going, I promise you,” said Harry.

He, Ron, and Hermione passed through the gateway together. He wished Draco could have been with him—but a moment later, he caught sight of him with a couple with white-blond hair and dressed all in black, just like Draco himself. His parents, no doubt. Harry hated to admit it, but his father looked highly unpleasant.

Draco caught his eye for a second, but the smile was off his face. It had been replaced by a curiously blank expression.

“There he is, Mum, there he is, look!”

It was Ginny Weasley, Ron's younger sister, but she wasn't pointing at Ron.

“Harry Potter!” she squealed. “Look, Mum! I can see—”

“Be quiet, Ginny, and it's rude to point.”

Mrs. Weasley smiled down at them.

“Busy year?” she said.

“Very,” said Harry. “Thanks for the fudge and the sweater, Mrs. Weasley.”

“Oh, it was nothing, dear.”

“Ready, are you?”

It was Uncle Vernon, still purple-faced, still mustached, still looking furious at the nerve of Harry, carrying an owl in a cage full of ordinary people. Behind him stood Aunt Petunia and Dudley, looking terrified at the very sight of Harry.

“You must be Harry's family!” said Mrs. Weasley.

“In a manner of speaking,” said Uncle Vernon. “Hurry up, boy, we haven't got all day.” He walked away.

Harry hung back for a last word with Ron and Hermione.

“See you over the summer, then.”

“Hope you have—er—a good holiday,” said Hermione, looking uncertainly after Uncle Vernon, shocked that anyone could be so unpleasant.

“Oh, I will,” said Harry, and they were surprised at the grin that was spreading over his face. “ _They_ don't know we're not allowed to use magic at home. I'm going to have a lot of fun with Dudley this summer....”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully, this was all easier to read broken up into separate chapters! I also got to go back and do some editing that desperately needed to be done. Huzzah!

**Author's Note:**

> Good god, am I tired. Please feel free to comment with any concerns or questions you have about this--especially with regards to slotting Draco in. I feel like I was a bit heavy-handed at times and that my reworking wasn't as seamless as it could have been, so let me know what you think or how I could improve! Thankssssss.


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